How the BBC Conspired With Open Border Activists

SMALL-boat migrants to the UK who confronted Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf on a BBC1 Question Time immigration special late last year were placed there by pro-immigration campaigners.

That is the devastating central finding of a Daily Telegraph investigation: the Corporation’s flagship current affairs programme, which is supposed to reflect public opinion, was rigged.

In the audience were two asylum seekers who vociferously challenged Yusuf, then Reform’s policy chief. With the BBC’s knowledge, they had been coached by IMIX, a campaigning charity which boasts that its mission is to welcome immigrants and build support for migration. One read a prepared statement from his phone.

Also with the BBC’s knowledge, IMIX’s chief executive, Jenni Regan, was in the audience and was selected to speak against reducing immigration. The charity later described the programme as an opportunity to ‘test some of our messaging directly’ on what it calls the ‘mixed middle’ or ‘persuadable’ public.

Yusuf claimed in the programme aftermath that he had been crudely ambushed. More than 1,000 viewers complained. The Daily Telegraph has now shown that the essence of his complaint was true.