The fallout from the BBC’s deceptive editing of sound and vision from President Donald Trump’s January 6 speech continues, threatening to humiliate not just the BBC but the UK government as well. A half-hearted admission of guilt and a few token resignations are hardly enough: neither to correct the BBC’s institutional bias, nor to placate the president or give either the president or the UK taxpayer anything approaching justice.
As you may be aware, the president’s lawyer Alejandro Brito has lodged a letter with the BBC demanding a full retraction and apology – or a defamation suit for $US1 billion in damages. British barrister Steven Barrett sums up the case as it is likely to unfold. Long story short: the BBC and the UK government are in for a world of pain.
Firstly, Trump is threatening to sue the BBC under the laws of his home state, Florida. Certainly, he could easily sue under British law, which is well known as being a much easier jurisdiction to win a defamation suit than the US. But Britain is also notoriously parsimonious with damages. Damages are capped at around $350,000 and even that’s unusually generous for the UK.
While the US makes defamation suits harder to succeed, it is famously generous with damages. Even when juries set ludicrous amounts and the judge cuts them down, the damages are still far bigger than anything granted in the UK.
But even in a much tougher defamation regime than Britain, Trump is almost certain to win, given what the BBC did.
What the BBC have done is absolutely outrageous. They have doctored a clip to make it appear that the president is calling upon his followers to march down to the capital and fight. That’s what they’ve done. They’ve edited it by over 50 minutes in order to have him allegedly declaring for violence, which he did not. He categorically did not [...]
While leftists remain absolutely convinced that he did, the facts simply cannot support their fixation. And this is why, no matter how desperately the Biden administration tried to pin incitement accusations against Trump, they failed at every turn.
Donald Trump, whatever, whether you like him or not, simply did not incite violence. He called on people to march down uh to the capital and pray for the senators and the other lawmakers there, which is a pretty noble thing to do. The section about fighting is completely unrelated and it it is in no way a cause to violence.
The evidence that the BBC deliberately and maliciously doctored the video and audio is so overwhelming that the case should never have to proceed. Not just because it’s so open-and-shut, but also because it will cause tremendous damage to the UK government and broadcasting authorities.
For a start, it’s going to be deeply embarrassing to the BBC. It’s going to be deeply embarrassing for our government. It’s going to be almost impossible for the Starmer administration to argue that the BBC is so distant from it that it’s not some way culpable. The current Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, is keeping her head down and hiding. That’s really just a very stupid tactic which obviously will not work.
Ofcom has basically sent out a statement exonerating the BBC. So, the guns will move to Ofcom soon and once you’ve shot down Ofcom, the guns will move to Lisa Nandy. Because this is not a sustainable position and in law and in litigation we often talk about and think about what are sustainable positions.
Just how unsustainable the denials are can be assessed by Trump’s successful suit against CBS. Like the BBC, CBS also doctored clips – in that case, to make Kamala Harris look more impressive. In both cases, the misinformation was intended to harm Trump’s election chances in 2024. More ominously for the BBC, the sum Trump is demanding in damages from them is much smaller than he asked from CBS.
The fact that he’s asked for one billion from the BBC, while that might seem high to us, that’s relatively low in US terms. He asked for a hundred billion against CBS. CBS very wisely then came to a settlement figure with him and apologized.
If the BBC and the UK government persist in refusing to apologise and settle, not only will it damage their reputations, it’ll also infuriate British taxpayers. Because the taxpayer will ultimately pay for the BBC’s deceit and the government’s intransigence.
Ultimately it’s our money that will be paying for lawyers if they choose to ridiculously defend themselves. And it will be our money that pays for both their lawyers and maybe his lawyers. I actually don’t know the cost regime in America, but we’ll be paying for at least the BBC lawyers, if we fight this all the way through, which will be a ridiculous amount of money. And we’ll pay for whatever settlement figure or damages figure the court awards, which is why instead you try to do what we call negotiate a settlement. That’s what CBS did, and that’s really what the BBC needs to be doing at this time.
The BBC needs to be absolutely pulling that documentary immediately. It needs to be formulating an apology and agreeing it with President Trump so that he is happy. It will probably need to be broadcast in prime time […]
If we’re lucky, Mr Trump may well take pity on us because he does actually quite like the genuine people of of this of these islands.
Simply put, the BBC have caused the UK a diplomatic crisis. Ofcom and the Starmer government are making it worse by the day by continuing to defend an indefensible public broadcaster.
If the president’s lawyers also decide to make use of UK law and make a FOI request, to dig out what the BBC are saying about him among themselves, it could get much, much worse for them.
Because I bet it’s quite negative and I bet that would look quite bad for the BBC, and frankly, as somebody who pays for the BBC, I think we have every right to know how they are talking about the president of our most important ally.
Where this will end is anybody’s guess. Either the taxpayer will be bilked for billions to atone for the BBC’s egregious wrongdoing, or (or perhaps and), not just the BBC, but Lisa Nandy and quite possibly Keir Starmer will be forced to personally apologise to the president.
That will certainly, and justifiably, be a savage blow to the standing of all of them.
All because the BBC couldn’t rein in its outrageous bias and stop telling lies.
