A senior American politician who grilled Nigel Farage over the Reform-run county council’s ban on Nottinghamshire Live believes “local journalism is under siege”.
Speaking more than three weeks after Nottinghamshire County Council imposed a ban on journalists at Nottinghamshire Live and the Local Democracy Reporting Service, US Congressman Rep. Jamie Raskin added: “nothing Nigel Farage has said since tells me he’s changed his views on this in any way”.
It comes after Rep. Raskin, the ranking Democrat member of the House Judiciary Committee, challenged the Reform leader on freedom of speech in Britain as he gave evidence to US Congress on September 3.
Addressing Farage at the committee, the US politician accused Reform of hypocrisy over the newspaper ban and said: “Why do you ban journalists who oppose your views from coming to your events?”
Speaking directly after the meeting, the Reform leader told the BBC he would “have a chat” with county council leader Mick Barton about the ban.
Yet more than two weeks later, Nottinghamshire Live and the Nottingham Post are still subject to the ban, which means reporters are unable to speak to Mr Barton and will not receive press releases or be invited to media events.
On Friday, September 19, Rep. Raskin told Nottinghamshire Live that the continuation of the ban was worrying as he warned of similar incidents over in the States.
“When he says the council should not allow for a newspaper to be notified or invited to particular events, that to me seems like censorship of the press,” the Congressman said.
“If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech across the board. He defends only the speech that he agrees with. They are not interested in protecting freedom of the press or freedom of speech.
“Is this part of Farage’s vision of his government? Is he going to be excluding press from official conferences if he were to actually become the prime minister?”
Rep. Raskin believes the ban is reminiscent of similar incidents in the States, referencing recent comments by Donald Trump in which the US President said TV channels that criticise him should “maybe” have their licences “taken away.”
The comments came after Trump’s administration applied pressure on American broadcaster ABC to sack late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel after he made comments about the murder suspect of activist Charlie Kirk.
“Farage only defends speech he agrees with, like Donald Trump, who said he was going to restore free speech to America, and now he’s literally censoring particular comedians because they dared to insult the President,” Rep. Raskin continued.
“Anybody who believes in freedom of speech has got to denounce what’s going on. We’ve seen a tremendous loss of small press outlets in America.
“Local journalism is under siege, and Trump and his government are doing everything that they can to attack the free press. But people are waking up to the threat.
“If we don’t have free speech, we don’t have democracy, and if we don’t have democracy, we don’t have free speech. We’ve got to do everything we can to stand up for the freedom of expression across the board.”
Nottinghamshire County Council’s ban of journalists at Nottinghamshire Live and the Nottingham Post newspaper remains in place more than three weeks after it was first implemented.
The reason given for the barring was an article which included a claim – which all parties mentioned had the chance to address – that Reform councillors not voting for council leader Mick Barton’s preference on local government reorganisation could be suspended from the group.
The party has said the ban will only be lifted in emergency situations like flooding or incidents at county council-run schools. Earlier council statements had said Nottinghamshire Live would also be banned from talking to all Reform county councillors, but Councillor Barton later denied this.
A debate on the authority’s ban was set to be debated at a full council meeting on Thursday (September 18), however previous council business overrunning meant this did not take place.
The group of 41 Reform councillors then voted against an extension to the meeting which would allow the motion to be heard. Broxtowe Alliance member Cllr Teresa Cullen told the LDRS after the meeting: “It became obvious earlier in the day that the Reform group were talking out on a lot of issues, and making answers really long so we didn’t get as far as the third motion in the afternoon.”
Reform UK’s national body has insisted it supports freedom of speech despite the ban put in place by Nottinghamshire County Council’s leadership. A spokesperson for the party nationally said the ban was not something they have decided at a national level, but Ashfield MP Lee Anderson and Richard Tice, who is also the deputy leader of Reform UK, have defended the ban.
We were unable to include a response from Nottinghamshire Reform councillors as we are banned from interviewing them.
