Britain’s public broadcaster is in crisis, not just because of bias, not just because of a handful of poor editorial decisions, but because it has been systematically compromised by decades of political interference, elite capture, and the unchecked revolving door between government, media, and private interests.
The case of Sir Robbie Gibb is not a one-off scandal. It is the clearest, most recent evidence of a long-standing failure to protect the BBC from becoming an instrument of establishment power. And the cost is public trust, truth, and the very principle of independent journalism.
A Growing Revolt From Within
Earlier this week, more than 400 actors, writers, journalists and cultural figures signed an extraordinary open letter demanding Gibb’s immediate removal from the BBC Board. Among them are respected names like Miriam Margolyes, Alexei Sayle, Juliet Stevenson, and, crucially, 111 BBC journalists — staff who have risked their careers to break silence over what they describe as “opaque editorial decisions and censorship” around the BBC’s reporting on Israel and Palestine.
This is not a fringe campaign. It is a broad-based revolt against a culture of fear and political deference that has infected Britain’s most influential news organisation.
The immediate spark was the BBC’s disgraceful decision to shelve Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, a documentary it commissioned, then buried, citing concerns that it might “risk creating a perception of partiality.” The film, ultimately aired by Channel 4, documents the relentless Israeli bombardment of Gaza’s healthcare system. The BBC’s refusal to broadcast it is more than cowardice; it is censorship masquerading as caution.
The Robbie Gibb Problem
At the centre of this scandal is Sir Robbie Gibb, a man whose conflicts of interest are glaring.
- Gibb was Theresa May’s former Director of Communications.
- He was head of the BBC’s Westminster political team.
- He led the consortium that purchased the Jewish Chronicle in 2020 — a publication that has a long track record of pro-Israel editorial slants.
- He sits on the BBC Board and its Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee — the body responsible for safeguarding impartiality.
To call Gibb’s position a conflict of interest is an understatement. It is an insult to the very concept of editorial independence.
This is not simply about Robbie Gibb’s Zionist sympathies. It is about the institutional failure of the BBC to firewall itself from political and ideological influence. The BBC was not dragged into this. It invited it in. The question is not how Gibb got here; the question is why the system allows people like him to thrive in the first place.
The Long Decline of BBC Independence
The BBC’s problems did not start with Gibb, and they will not end with him.
For decades, successive British governments, Conservative and Labour alike, have interfered with the BBC, quietly stacking the organisation’s leadership with politically sympathetic appointees. The Johnson government’s appointment of Richard Sharp, a Tory donor and close ally of Boris Johnson, as BBC Chair (until his resignation in 2023 over a financial scandal) is just one recent example in a pattern that long predates it.
This creeping capture has created a BBC less interested in challenging power and more obsessed with not offending it. Nowhere is this more evident than in its reporting on Israel and Palestine. From routinely platforming Israeli government spokespeople without challenge, to downplaying Palestinian civilian casualties, to avoiding the word “occupation”, the BBC’s coverage has often seemed paralysed by a desire to avoid upsetting British political orthodoxy.
When BBC staff themselves are now warning that internal decisions are being made “without discussion or explanation” and that “our failures impact audiences,” the rot can no longer be dismissed as perception. It is a crisis of governance and culture.
The Revolving Door
Robbie Gibb’s career is a textbook example of Britain’s broken media-politics nexus.
In the UK, the revolving door is not a bug, it is a feature. Senior figures move effortlessly between the BBC, Downing Street, party political communications, and media outlets with entrenched ideological positions. These networks operate with the quiet comfort of class solidarity, shared interests, and informal influence.
This is not about crude conspiracy. It is about how power is organised.
The BBC’s top decision-makers increasingly come from a narrow political and social class. They do not need to be told to avoid certain stories or angles. They already know.
A Pattern of Suppression
The Gaza: Doctors Under Attack scandal is not isolated. The BBC has a documented pattern of:
- Shelving or sanitising reporting that presents Israel’s military actions in a negative light.
- Failing to use standard journalistic terms like “apartheid,” “occupation,” or “ethnic cleansing” even when supported by major international bodies.
- Applying disproportionate scrutiny to Palestinian voices while giving Israeli officials a free pass.
- Rapidly correcting minor errors that favour Palestinian narratives while allowing Israeli misrepresentations to pass unchallenged.
These are not simply mistakes. They are the outcomes of an editorial system structurally shaped by fear, deference, and captured leadership.
More Than Gibb: A Political System That Protects Power
What is most alarming is not that Robbie Gibb holds this power, but that there are no effective checks to stop it. Successive governments have either actively placed partisan figures into public broadcasting leadership or quietly allowed the process to unfold without resistance.
The BBC is no longer simply under threat. It has been slowly colonised by political operatives who understand the power of media to shape public consciousness.
Robbie Gibb is not a rogue actor. He is the system working as designed.
The Consequences
Since October 2023, Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the majority of them women and children. Entire hospitals have been bombed, neighbourhoods reduced to rubble, the civilian death toll unprecedented in modern conflict.
And yet the BBC, funded by the public and tasked with informing the public, has repeatedly muffled the truth.
This is not simply editorial caution. It is complicity. It is the managed silence of a broadcaster that is no longer structurally capable of telling uncomfortable truths.
What Must Happen
Robbie Gibb’s removal is not optional. It is the bare minimum step if the BBC wishes to salvage even a shred of credibility.
But more importantly, the entire system that allows political appointees and corporate-aligned figures to sit atop Britain’s public institutions must be dismantled.
The BBC’s governance should not be controlled by a handful of Whitehall insiders, political fixers, or figures with deep ties to the very subjects they are supposed to oversee impartially.
The public must stop accepting the convenient myth that these structures are neutral or apolitical. They are not.
The BBC can only serve the public interest if it is fearless, independent, and structurally insulated from the influence of power. Until then, it will remain what it has sadly become: a carefully managed mouthpiece that pretends to speak truth to power while quietly deferring to it.
Robbie Gibb should never have been anywhere near the BBC. But his story is not the disease. It is merely a symptom.
