“These are ‘Farage boats’, in many senses, that are coming across the Channel,” claimed Keir Starmer, delivering what he hoped was a killer line and one he had kept especially for GB News.
The channel is Nigel Farage’s home ground, where he hosts his eponymous evening show. It is the broadcast media outlet that has done most to propel his Reform UK to the top of the polls, embracing the party’s campaigns for action on small boat migrant crossings and grooming gangs.
So when Starmer sat down with GB News political editor Christopher Hope in Liverpool after his Labour conference speech, he was seeking an away win. His audacious remark worked well for the self-styled “People’s Channel”, helping it set the news agenda. “Our GB News interview with Sir Keir Starmer is currently splashing the websites of The Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian and the Daily Mail,” tweeted Hope happily.
The episode showed that a marginal news platform that was the butt of jokes when it launched four years ago has the potential to become a key media battleground ahead of the next election.
This presents a conundrum for Labour. On the one hand, there is palpable distaste for GB News within party ranks. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has repeatedly voiced concern that Farage has a show on a news channel (as does fellow Reform MP Lee Anderson). She told a parliamentary committee that this was part of a media trend that was “fracturing” and “very, very dangerous”.
Yet there is realisation in Downing Street that the broadcaster offers a gateway to a section of the voting public that could be pivotal at the next election, particularly in Red Wall seats. While GB News can sometimes sound like a mouthpiece for Reform, polling of its audience before the last election revealed that 39 per cent planned to vote Labour, versus 20 per cent for Farage’s party.
Starmer is currently polling as the most unpopular Prime Minister on record, but he must believe he can rally some of those viewers if he survives to fight the next election.
Whether his “Farage boats” attack line landed with the GB News audience is doubtful. “He must secretly wish he was Nigel,” commented one online. The channel hosted Farage, saying: “See here is, once again, inverting the truth, gaslighting the British public, attempting to blame everything on me.”
As the story took off, Hope came back on air to challenge the PM’s claim on behalf of the audience. “Viewers are concerned, there are concerns about what he’s doing now,” he told presenters Ellie Costello and Eamonn Holmes. “He’s trying to set up Reform as the opponents to unite his fractious Labour Party.”
Earlier this year, Hope, who joined GB News in 2023 after a distinguished career as a political journalist at The Telegraph, confronted Starmer over his claim that a “far-right bandwagon” was driving calls for a grooming gangs inquiry. “A lot of GB News viewers and listeners were also concerned, they thought you were calling them far-right,” he said. Starmer replied: “I certainly wasn’t criticising your viewers.”
Boris Johnson and his cabinet boycotted media outlets that they deemed to be hostile, including the BBC’s Today programme and Channel 4 News. Starmer’s media strategy is different. No 10 has decided it cannot ignore GB News, which has been beating the BBC news channel and Sky News in ratings and offers better prospects of winning over swing voters.
square IAN BURRELL Don't become complacent about GB News: it is no longer fringe media
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Last week a succession of Labour figures went into this lion’s den. Peter Swallow MP was mauled when trying to explain Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s use of the term “ethno-nationalism”. Migration minister Mike Tapp struggled to convince GB News presenters that Labour was tightening rules on migrants granted indefinite leave to remain.
Hope interviewed Mahmood, who told him: “I’ve got one job: I’m going to secure our borders.” At least her tough talking has impressed right-wing media. “It’s time we had a Home Secretary who can show them who is boss,” said The Sun in an extraordinarily supportive leader last week.
Some Labour MPs – such as Red Wall MP and Sports Minister Stephanie Peacock and London MP Barry Gardiner – have long engaged with GB News. Others appear to discuss Prime Ministers Questions with Hope and co-presenter Gloria De Piero, herself a former Labour front-bencher.
But there is also nervousness on Labour benches that dancing with Farage’s favourite outlet will incur disapproval from party members who regard the channel as beyond the pale. Some fear losing votes to parties on the left.
GB News, largely owned by right-wing media magnate Sir Paul Marshall, will see no reason to change its agenda. Not when it is prominent on the Prime Minister’s radar, and his potential successor is in its schedule.
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