Protesters including Piers Corbyn at Trafalgar Square on April 15, 2023 in London, England, voicing ... [+]
The BBC’s internal watchdog has dismissed complaints that an April TV news report misrepresented the attendance of conspiracy theorists at a rally in London’s Trafalgar Square. At this rally, hundreds of protestors railed against the expansion by London Mayor Sadiq Khan of the city’s ultra-low emission zone, or ULEZ.
“We considered [the] evidence sufficient to justify the report’s reference to the presence of conspiracy theorists,” said a decision by the BBC’s executive complaints unit (ECU) published on August 3.
However, ECU upheld a complaint on the presence of far-right groups at the same rally, stating that even though there was evidence that was “suggestive of the presence of far right groups” this “fell short of establishing that such groups had in fact been represented among the demonstrators.”
Protesters hold a banner expressing their opinions during the demonstration against ULEZ (Ultra Low ... [+]
ECU adjudicates unresolved complaints sent to the BBC. The watchdog received 44 complaints about local BBC news coverage of an anti-ULEZ protest on April 15. This protest started at Trafalgar Square with pro-motoring marchers later slow-walking in the road, Just-Stop-Oil-style, to protest close to Downing Street.
Before being escalated to ECU, the BBC’s news department told complainants it stood by its report.
“Campaigners against the ultra-low emission zone held a protest in central London today,” reported BBC London News in the 5.35 pm bulletin on April 15, adding that “local protestors and mainstream politicians were joined by conspiracy theorists and far right groups.”
Complainants were told that BBC London had “deployed a reporter to the protest and she witnessed, and documented, first hand, motifs on tabards and placards with explicit Nazi references, along with other epithets about world order and democracy.”
Indeed, videos of the march published on YouTube show that among the hundreds of protestors, there was a significant minority of conspiracy theorists, including people distributing copies of the conspiracy theory newspaper The Light.
Protesters hold signs against the ULEZ expansion at Trafalgar Square on April 15, 2023 in London, ... [+]
On one large poster Khan was likened to the WWII Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels. A placard held up by a protestor claimed that “all heaven is about the break loose with the fall of the cabal.”
The term cabal originates from the word kabbalah, the Jewish mystical interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. The American Jewish Committee says the use of the word is frequently anti-Semitic and often a “dog whistle for Jewish control [of the world.]”
Piers Corbyn who recently had his car seized for non-payment of ULEZ fines protests at Trafalgar ... [+]
One of those at the Trafalgar Square demo was climate change denialist Piers Corbyn, who also campaigns against Covid-19 vaccination and the cashless society. There were many climate change-denying placards visible at the demo. One claimed that climate change was a “global fraud.”
Together
One of the organizers of the anti-ULEZ demo was Together Declaration, an anti-ULEZ, lockdown skeptical organization.
One of the many speakers at the demo invited by Together Declaration was anti-vaxxer Geoff Mealing.
“Gonna be a One World Government,” Mealing told the demo via a loudspeaker provided by the Together Declaration.
“If you want to buy steak,” he continued, “they will say you can’t have that.”
(Belief in the imposition of a one-world government that will enforce the provision of food as a weapon of control is a standard conspiracy theory.)
On social media, Mealing also spreads misinformation on chemtrails, the belief that world powers are controlling people through chemicals disseminated via airplane vapor trails. He has also claimed that introducing low-traffic neighborhoods (LTNs) and 15-minute cities is like living in a “concentration camp.”
One of the other Together Declaration speakers was libertarian financial pundit and comedian Dominic Frisby who, in 2019, was chosen as the Brexit Party’s parliamentary candidate in the Old Bexley and Sidcup constituency.
Through the sound system, Frisby told protestors that the Muslim Mayor of London was “an enemy.”
“Sadiq Khan hates you,” added Frisby.
“He hates the English.”
(Khan was born in London.)
The BBC’s executive complaints unit did not uphold the complaint that viewers watching April’s TV news report would conclude that the anti-ULEZ demo was “predominantly made up of conspiracy theorists and adherents of the far right,” adding that “we saw nothing in the wording of the report which would have given viewers the impression that such viewpoints were predominant, or even widely shared, among those taking part.”
The videos of the event available on YouTube bear this out, with conspiracy theorists only part of a much larger crowd.
The U.K. Government is currently examining the effectiveness of the BBC’s complaints process as part of a mid-term review of the corporation’s 10-year Royal Charter.
