BBC executives have admitted the broadcaster was wrong to interview a former chair of Labour Friends of Israel without informing audiences of his links to either the country or weapons manufacturers.
John Woodcock, a former Labour MP who has been known as “Lord Walney” since becoming a crossbench peer in 2020, had appeared on the BBC following the High Court’s decision to overturn the UK Government’s proscription of Palestine Action as a terror group in February. The case will ultimately now go to the Supreme Court.
Woodcock, a former UK Government adviser on extremism, had proposed a ban on Palestine Action in 2024. The Labour Government proscribed the group as a terrorist organisation the following year, in July 2025.
After the initial High Court ruling in February, Woodcock appeared on the BBC to speak in favour of the ban he had proposed.
However, a viewer complained that the BBC had not informed viewers that Woodcock “had a variety of interests in the subject-matter of the interview”.
The BBC executive complaints unit considered the complaint against the BBC’s editorial guidelines on impartiality, and ultimately it was upheld.
The guidelines state: “It should not be assumed that contributors to BBC output are unbiased or impartial. For those from organisations such as charities, think-tanks or universities, it may be necessary, when relevant, to give appropriate information about affiliations, funding or particular viewpoints.
“The same applies to individual researchers, journalists, scientists or other experts and, on occasion, to contributors who may be relating their own experiences. The key test is to consider whether the audience would be misled if such information was not made available.”
The executive unit upheld the complaint, saying they key information had been withheld.
“Lord Walney was captioned as a former Government advisor on political violence and introduced as ‘a critic of Palestine Action’s methods’,” it said.
“In many contexts this would have given viewers sufficient information. In this context, however, the ECU considered some of his interests, which included connections with the defence industry and his period of service as chair of Labour Friends of Israel, were of such relevance [to] the matter he was commenting on that viewers should have been given at least some information about them.”
Woodcock resigned from Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party in 2018 amid an internal probe into sexual harassment allegations. He denied wrongdoing.
He was made a peer by Boris Johnson, who also appointed him the UK Government’s extremism adviser, a post he held until it was scrapped in 2025.
