Last month, in a disturbing but not entirely unsurprising development, the leader of a Reform UK council effectively barred a local newspaper and website from interacting with the authority.
The ban imposed by Nottinghamshire County Council came after Nottinghamshire Live published a series of stories which council leader Mick Barton claimed “consistently misrepresented” Reform.
It was a strange move for a party that bills itself as the champion of free speech. And it was somewhat ironic that it came just days before party leader Nigel Farage lambasted the state of free speech in the UK in front of a congressional committee in Washington DC.
But the truly worrying thing is that the block on engaging with the media is not a localised phenomenon, but one which could truly rear its ugly head on a national scale if Mr Farage takes control of Downing Street.
Experience of dealing with Reform’s national operation over the last few months has demonstrated that this situation is more than simply one council going rogue.
As political editor of The Independent, I have taken threatening calls from a member of Reform’s leadership and an aide of Mr Farage, telling me that The Independent will be banned from all events if we do not change a critical story or the tone of our questions and coverage.
In one case, a member of the leadership took umbrage at a piece suggesting they had been hypocritical (they had, by the way) in their attack on Rachel Reeves over her CV. In between threatening legal action, they added: “I will make sure The Independent does not get to attend a single one of our events or get a single interview again.”
They did not follow through on the threat, but another senior official made a rather revealing and sinister comment: “You don’t want to ruin relations with a party leading the polls over a story like this.”
In other words, we need to stay on the party’s good side because it might win an election – or else! Someone does not appear to understand what journalists do.
One of my colleagues was specifically targeted as someone who would not be allowed to attend events because a senior Reform staffer falsely accused him of being “an activist journalist”.
“He comes here with his rainbow lanyard and his pronouns with his snide questions,” they said.
Needless to say, once the threat of being banned was made, the journalist in question was sent to each and every event unless he was on holiday.
At one point, he was blocked from going into a press conference because it was claimed he had not registered (he had). Reform only backed down when I messaged to say I would be publishing a story about them banning The Independent from the event. I was subsequently assured it had not been intentional.
Much more disturbing was when a female colleague attended a recent press conference and was verbally attacked by a male Reform staffer in the middle of the event.
The Reform staffer had been reading messages over her shoulder that she had written on her laptop back to head office, and leaned forward with his face up close to hers and started angrily objecting to them, making her feel extremely uncomfortable and threatened.
Ironically, it was at a press conference about how to protect women.
I know that these are not experiences isolated to The Independent.
I have been told by an insider that there was a serious discussion within Reform a number of months ago about banning The Mirror and The Guardian from their events.
Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed in that discussion.
It is not as though we should be surprised by this because Reform is essentially importing the Maga tactics of Donald Trump in a divide-and-rule approach – excluding those who challenge or do not do as they are told.
I remember very clearly going to the Oval Office to see Keir Starmer meet Trump, and the Associated Press (AP) representative in front of me being stopped and barred from the event. AP had refused to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
But let us be clear about this: the behaviour of Reform I have described above is not normal.
Political parties in this country do not ban or threaten journalists. They may get angry, there may be complaints and arguments – but nothing like I have described above.
The only other major party to behave like this was the Scottish National Party, especially under the leadership of Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon.
But they, like Reform, are nationalist and populist in nature, so maybe we should not be surprised.
The irony of all this is that Reform’s rise to the top of the polls and dominating the political agenda has been because of the huge political coverage it has received – much greater than its number of MPs would warrant.
If there is one bit of hope, it is that there are some cooler, more experienced heads in the party. Mr Farage himself has never made such threats and was one of the first political leaders I knew who gave out his number to journalists.
You can see by the way he allows every journalist who attends his many events to ask a question that he, personally, is not afraid of the scrutiny or difficult questions. Perhaps it is because he is a confident and accomplished media performer. Actually, his approach at press conferences is one that other leaders – like Sir Keir – should adopt.
But that is not the same for all of Reform’s senior figures. Last week, deputy leader Richard Tice defended Mr Barton over his actions.
He told Sky News that Nottinghamshire Live “distorts and completely acts in an irresponsible way”, and therefore, councillors were “entitled to say, ‘we’re going to talk to other parts of the media, not yourselves’”.
It is a disturbing indication of what would happen if Reform enters Downing Street.
It is worth remembering that free speech does not exist if there is not a free press able to carry out its work and hold people to account.
Mr Farage should have remembered that when he gave evidence in Washington. No wonder he got torn to sheds and humiliated by Democrat congressman Jamie Raskin.
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