Author and historian Rutger Bregman has accused the BBC of censorship after the broadcaster removed a line about Donald Trump from his Reith Lecture, 'A Time Of Monsters'.
The corporation cut a reference where Mr Bregman described the US president as “the most openly corrupt president in American history”.
It said that the edit was made “on legal advice”.
The controversy emerges in the wake of a separate dispute involving Donald Trump, who recently threatened the BBC with a billion-dollar lawsuit.
That threat concerned an edit in a 2024 Panorama episode, which spliced together parts of his 6 January 2021 speech.
Mr Bregman delivered his lecture in full to a live audience in London in October, with the edited recording airing on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday at 9am.
On his social media platforms, Mr Bregman, a 37-year-old Dutch academic and author of Utopia For Realists, maintained that his original statement “wasn’t a baseless accusation”.
He said: “I have some really disappointing news to share, and honestly, I wish this wasn’t true, but the BBC has decided to censor the opening lecture of a series they invited me to give.
“They deleted the sentence in which I described Donald Trump as the most openly corrupt president in American history. That line is gone.
“It has been removed from the version broadcast this morning on BBC Radio 4.
“Last Wednesday, I was told the sentence was being discussed with US lawyers and at the highest levels inside the BBC.
“For days, they couldn’t give me an answer. Yesterday they finally did, and the irony could not be bigger, because this lecture, titled A Time Of Monsters, is exactly about the cowardice of today’s elites, about universities, corporations, and yes, media networks, bending the knee to authoritarianism.
“I find it hard to express how shocked I am at the BBC’s decision.”
He said the annual Reith Lectures, which have been going for more than 75 years, are about “free expression” and that this censorship “should concern everyone”.
Mr Bregman also said the removed sentence was “defensible and plausible”.
He cited a major investigation from the New Yorker, published in August, which said “the notion that Trump is making colossal sums off the presidency has become commonplace” and offered a breakdown of estimated personal gains.
Mr Bregman added: “This decision by the leadership of the BBC is very serious. It isn’t even about me. It’s about something much bigger.
“When institutions start censoring themselves because they’re scared of those in power, that is the moment we all need to pay attention.
“Democracies don’t collapse overnight. They gradually erode in acts of fear.”
The Reith Lectures are named after the BBC’s first director-general, Lord Reith, and sees the corporation invite a leading figure to deliver a series of lectures on radio about significant issues of the day.
Previous Reith lecturers have included theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, Wolf Hall author Dame Hilary Mantel and the “father of the atomic bomb” J Robert Oppenheimer.
A BBC spokesperson said: “All of our programmes are required to comply with the BBC’s editorial guidelines, and we made the decision to remove one sentence from the lecture on legal advice.”
It comes after BBC board members were questioned about impartiality by MPs on Monday after BBC chair Samir Shah admitted the edited speech, given by Mr Trump ahead of the disorder at the US Capitol in 2021, gave “the impression of a direct call for violent action”.
