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GB News is facing a backlash after a commentator on one of its shows suggested there is “a genocide happening” against white people in England and that immigrants could “turn” on the white population.
Ofcom, the media regulator, has received a series of complaints about the comments by Thomas Corbett-Dillon.
Corbett-Dillon, who worked on Penny Mordaunt’s unsuccessful Conservative party leadership campaign and who also claims to have advised Boris Johnson, appeared on GB News’s US-based Late Show Live last week.
During a discussion about the UK government’s anti-extremism strategy, Corbett-Dillon said: “I hate this idea that England is just a no man’s land. No, there is an indigenous population that have lived on that island for thousands of years.
“If this was happening in any other place around the world, everyone would be defending and saying: ‘Wow, there’s a genocide happening in this island because it is being taken over by different people that are not indigenous to that land.’”
Later on, responding to a former Liberal Democrat councillor who said he was proud to come from Leicester, Corbett-Dillon said “once again, another country is being turned into a no longer white nation”.
“If there is a genocide against white people, where do they go,” he said. “There is no more land. So this argument: ‘Oh, but isn’t it so nice ... it would be boring if we didn’t have these people.’ Because, what, you can get a curry down the street?
“Guess what? In 20, 30 years there will be no white nations left. And I would love to know where you’re planning on going when they really turn on us, because it has happened before and it will happen again.”
Ofcom has received 24 complaints, but has not yet decided whether to investigate. Section two of the broadcasting code states there are “generally accepted standards” that need to be applied to content.
Approached for comment, Corbett-Dillon replied with a lengthy statement in which he said he stood by his comments. He compared his support for England to preserve its “historic English character” with his backing for Israel’s right to be a Jewish-majority state, or Japan to be a Japanese-majority society.
“I’m sure the Guardian will attempt to sensationalise my comments, but I clearly said that if a small Pacific island were experiencing the same demographic change that the UK has, the media, and the UN, would call it a genocide,” he said.
The regulator has recently been accused of abandoning the enforcement of impartiality rules.
It was criticised last month after refusing to investigate a GB News interview with Donald Trump in which the president claimed human-induced climate change was “a hoax” and that London had no-go areas for police.
Chris Banatvala, Ofcom’s founding director of standards, who drafted its code and investigation procedures, said there were potential issues with both offensive material and due impartiality rules in relation to Corbett-Dillon’s comments, because of a relative lack of challenge to them.
“At one stage Corbett-Dillon asks where are all white people going to go when ‘they [non-white people] really turn on us, because as it happened before and it will happen again’? There was no challenge or questioning of such statements,” Banatvala said.
“For me, this raises enough issues for Ofcom to investigate this content and ask GB News how they consider these potentially offensive comments complied with the code and how the presenter ensured that the comments were contextualised.”
A GB News spokesperson said Corbett-Dillon’s comments were “his own views, not those of the channel, and a range of other views were also expressed in the debate”.
“GB News is committed to free speech and to providing a platform for robust but respectful debate on issues of public interest,” they said. “Discussions around immigration, integration and national identity are widely debated in democratic societies and it is important that different perspectives can be aired and scrutinised.
“GB News operates in full compliance with the Ofcom broadcasting code and takes its responsibilities as a regulated broadcaster seriously.”
