Boris Johnson and 10 other Brexiteers have demanded that the BBC include one of them in Brexit TV debate
Their letter to the BBC accuses the broadcaster of breaching its impartiality rules by not including a Brexiteer in the debate
BORIS Johnson and 10 fellow senior Brexiteers have written to the BBC demanding one of them be included in the prime-time Brexit TV debate.
The letter to Sir David Clementi, chairman of the BBC Board, accuses the broadcaster of breaching its impartiality rules with its plans to exclude a Brexiteer from the TV showdown next Sunday.
The signatories include a string of ex-Cabinet ministers, including the two ex-Brexit Secretaries David Davis and Dominic Raab, ex-Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith and the former Culture Secretary John Whittingdale, who oversaw the renewal of the BBC’s last charter.
They say that by failing to include a politician who campaigned for Brexit they will fail to represent the 17.4 million people who voted to leave.
The Beeb has so far only invited Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn to participate in the debate - with questions coming from a panel of commentators and politicians.
No10 and Labour are at loggerheads over the format, with Mr Corbyn only willing to take part if it’s a straight head-to-head debate.
But No10 laid down the gauntlet, telling Mr Corbyn to take it or leave it.
A spokesman for the PM said: “If Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t agree to what’s now on the table — a debate on primetime with the Prime Minister — the public will rightly conclude he’s running scared.
"So let’s get on with it.”
The Brexiteers’ letter to the BBC claims the current proposals “will do nothing to illuminate the real issues at stake.”
It adds: “Both the Prime Minister and the Labour Leader voted to remain in the EU.
"They are both wedded to slightly different models of staying in the customs union.
“They have both abandoned any real prospect of regulatory divergence from much of the single market.
"In both cases they are dismissing the strongly held views of a substantial number of MPs in their own parties who believe that they are therefore supporting a humiliating pseudo-Brexit that will leave Britain as a captive state of the EU, but with no say in Brussels, an outcome that amounts to the worst of both worlds.
“Therefore, neither leader can be said by any interpretation of their positions to be backing a plan that will deliver on the mandate of the 17.4 m people who voted leave; with the result that the views of those 17.4 m - the largest number of British people ever mobilised to vote for a single proposition - will be nowhere represented in this prime time debate, through the BBC or through any other broadcast medium.
"The BBC and all other broadcasters should understand how allowing the PM to set the terms of this, breaches the concept of impartiality, particularly as doing this turns this into a Labour versus Conservative debate, with no real relevance to the fundamental issues.
"This is after all, not a General Election and the Government or the opposition cannot be allowed to play fast and loose with representative democracy.”
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