Boris Johnson faces Tory backbench revolt over ‘picking fight’ with BBC

Boris Johnson is facing a Tory backbench revolt over ‘picking a fight’ with the BBC amid claims the government wants to scrap the licence fee.

A series of MPs have broken cover to warn over the threat to ‘whack’ the corporation by forcing fundamental reforms.  

Downing Street is mulling replacing the licence fee with a subscription model, forcing the sale of most BBC radio stations, cutting the number of television stations and reducing the amount of online content. 

However, former ministerial aide Huw Merriman was among the Conservatives warning the corporation ‘should not be a target’. 

Party vice-chair Andrew Bowie cautioned that the move would fuel calls for Scottish independence, saying the BBC was one of the ‘last shared institutions’ in the UK. 

Boris Johnson floated an overhaul of the BBC during the election campaign, and plans have been unveiled to decriminalise non-payment of the licence fee.

However, the pressure was ramped up dramatically in briefings over the weekend.

Former culture secretary John Whittingdale, who has long pushed for change at the corporation, has been brought back into government in the reshuffle and tasked with leading the charge.

Other Cabinet ministers have stressed no decisions have been taken, and the BBC’s current charter runs until 2027.   

Mr Merriman, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the BBC, wrote In the Daily Telegraph today that the Tories had not included dropping the licence fee in its manifesto. 

He said ‘it feels as if senior government aides are now ramping up an unedifying vendetta against this much-admired corporation.

‘This culminated in a bizarre promise this weekend to ‘whack’ the BBC with a suggestion it should ‘be slimmed down and put on subscription’.’

Mr Merriman said the BBC has an ’80 per cent approval rating from the same public which elected this government’.

He added that given some people had voted Conservative for the first time, ‘it begs the question as to why we are picking such a potentially unpopular fight’.

He wrote: ‘The BBC should not be a target.

‘It not only brings us together at home but helps maintain our influence on the world stage.

‘If the BBC ends up in decline, if a much-loved and revered institution is devalued and if the costs go up, it will be this Government which will stand accused by the very people who we will be relying on to support us at the next election.’

Posting on Twitter in response to the weekend briefings, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine MP Mr Bowie said: ‘Uneasy about this. 

‘From a Unionist perspective, this is one of our last shared institutions – one in which every Briton has an equal stake; one that we as one nation share. 

‘Yes, we get frustrated with it. Yes, it can do better. But it is ours.’

His view was endorsed by Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Tom Tugendhat, who added that the World Service was ‘one of the strongest forces in fighting state propaganda around the world’.  

Gloucester MP Richard Graham, the PM’s trade envoy, voiced alarm about an ‘all-out assault’ on the BBC.

‘If this is all for real John Whittingdale will face a lot of very unhappy colleagues, especially on local radio,’ he wrote.

A Number 10 spokesman said: ‘I would point you to what the Prime Minister has said on this before, which was ‘at this stage we are not planning to get rid of all licence fees though I am certainly looking at it’.’ 

Asked whether the broadcaster would be told to shut down local radio stations, the spokesman said: ‘How the BBC is run is a matter for the BBC.’