lAST month, in a disturbing but not completely amazing development, A leader of A Improvement UK Council Effectively stopped Website by interacting with a local newspaper and authority.
Re -ban Nottinghamshire County Council Nottinghamshire Live published a series of stories, in which reforms claimed that the party was “presented the wrongly incorrectly”.
It was a strange step For a party that bills himself as the champion of a free speech. And it was an irony that it came a few days ago from the leader of the party. Nigel Faraj In front of a Congress committee at Washington DC, a plan was planned to reduce the status of free speech in the UK.
But the really worrying thing is that block when attached to the media Is not localized The event, but one who can really back his ugly head on a national scale Mr. Faraj Takes control of Downing Street.
The experience of dealing with national operations of improvement in the last few months has demonstrated that this situation is a crook than only a council.
As a political editor of IndependentI have taken a threatening call from a member Lead of reform And a colleague of Mr. Faraj told me that Independent If we do not change the tone of an important story or our questions and coverage, all events will be banned.
In one case, a member of the leadership took a piece on a piece, suggesting that he was a hypocrite (they, by the way) in his attack on Rachel Reeves on his CV. Amid threatening legal action, he said: “I will make sure Independent One does not get to participate in one of our events or to get a single interview. ,
He did not look through danger, but another senior official made a disclosure and horrific remarks: “You don’t want to ruin the relationship with a party, leading the election on such a story.”
In other words, we need to remain on their good side because they can win the election, or! Nobody understands what journalists do.
One of my colleagues was especially targeted as a person who would not be allowed to participate in the events because a senior reform employee falsely accused him ” Journalist,
He said, “He (he comes here with questions with his pronoun (with his rainbow cord and his pronouns,” he said.
Needless to say that, once the danger of being banned once, the journalist was sent to every incident until he was on leave.
At one point, he was blocked by going to a press conference because he claimed that he did not register (had them). Improvement was done only when I messed up to say that I would publish a story about them Independent From the event. I was later assured that it was not deliberately.
It was very disturbing when a female colleague recently attended a press conference and was verbally attacked by a male reform employee.
The reforming employee was reading a message on his shoulder, which he wrote back to his laptop in the head office and bowed forward with her face and started raising anger with her, which made her feel very uncomfortable and threatened.
The irony is that a press conference was at a press conference about how to protect women.
I know these are not different experiences Independent,
I have been told by an internal formula that there was a serious discussion within the improvement within the ban, several months ago about the ban. mirror And Mentor From their events.
Thankfully, the cooler heads were strong in that discussion.
It is not that we should be surprised by this because correction is essentially importing Donald Trump’s demand strategy in a division and rule approach – except for those who challenge or do not do as they are told.
I remember that I have to go to the Oval Office very clearly to see the Care Stmper meeting Trump and Associated Press (AP), which is being stopped in front of me and was stopped from this incident. The AP refused to call the Gulf of America to the Gulf of the US.
But we should be clear about this: I did not normalize the behavior described above.
Political parties in this country do not ban or threaten journalists. They may get angry, there may be complaints and arguments – but nothing I have described above.
The only other major party to behave in this way was the Scottish National Party, especially led by Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon.
But they, like reform, are nationalist and populist in nature, so perhaps we should not be surprised.
The irony of all this is that the huge political coverage he has received due to improvement on top of voting and dominating political agenda is – there will be a lot of warrant than the number of MPs.
If there is any hope, it is that the party has some coolers, more experienced heads. Mr. Faraj himself has never threatened such a threat and he was one of the first political leaders who I knew who gave his number to journalists.
You can see in the way he allows every journalist who participates in many of his programs to ask a question whether he is not afraid of personally, investigation or difficult questions. Perhaps this is because he is a confident and skillful media artist. Actually, his attitude in the press conference is one who should adopt other leaders – like Sir Keer -.
But this is not the same for all senior data of improvement. finals weekDeputy leader Richard Tice Nottinghamshire Council leader Mick Barton defended his works.
They told sky News This notinghamshire “deforms and works perfectly in an irresponsible manner” and therefore the councilors were entitled to saying that ‘we are going to talk to other parts of the media, not ourselves “.
This is a disturbing indication that what will happen if the improvement enters Downing Street.
It is worth remembering that free speech does not exist if there is no free pressure that is not able to complete its work and keep people in mind. Mr. Faraj may need to remember that when he gives evidence today.