Keir Starmer dealing with calls to ‘get up for Britain’ after Trump vows to sue BBC for as much as $5billion in taxpayers’ cash
Sir Keir Starmer tonight faced calls to ‘stand up for Britain’ and persuade Donald Trump not to sue the BBC for billions of pounds.
On Friday night, the US President said he would seek up to $5billion (£3.8billion) in damages over the broadcaster’s misleading editing of one of his speeches.
The BBC has apologised but declined to pay him damages, setting the scene for a high-profile legal showdown.
Mr Trump’s comments have sent shockwaves through the corporation, which now faces the prospect of spending huge amounts of licence-fee payers’ money to either fight or settle the lawsuit.
The President said he planned to call Sir Keir this weekend and talk to him about the issue, adding that the Prime Minister was ‘very embarrassed’ by the incident.
Amid fears that the BBC’s survival is under threat, Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey urged the Prime Minister to use his warm relationship with the President to urge him to abandon the case.
‘This is Keir Starmer’s moment to stand up for Britain and call on Trump to drop his ludicrous lawsuit,’ he said. ‘The Prime Minister has spent months cosying up to Trump. If he can’t stop him from attacking one of our most precious institutions, what was it all for?’
Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said it is now time for the scandal-hit BBC to appoint an internal watchdog.
President Trump said he planned to call Sir Keir (pictured) this weekend and talk to him about the issue, adding that the Prime Minister was ‘very embarrassed’ by the incident
Mr Trump is expected to launch his lawsuit in Florida. The Panorama film which contained the edit appearing to show him inciting Capitol Hill protesters to violence on January 6, 2021, was not available in the US, but experts believe the case could still come before a jury, which is likely to be sympathetic to the President.
BBC chairman Samir Shah last week sent a personal letter to the White House to apologise for the editing, which has not been enough to satisfy the President.
Speaking on Air Force One on Friday, Mr Trump said of his legal action: ‘I think I have to do it. They’ve even admitted that they cheated… They changed the words coming out of my mouth.’
‘The people of the UK are very angry about what happened as you can imagine because it shows the BBC is fake news.’
In a separate interview on GB News on Friday night, Mr Trump claimed he had an ‘obligation’ to sue the BBC, which he branded ‘corrupt’ and ‘beyond fake’. ‘This was so egregious. If you don’t do it, you don’t stop it from happening again with other people. I’d like to find out why they did it.’
Sam Nunberg, a former Trump campaign official, today said he believed the President had ‘a pretty solid case’ and that the BBC’s lawyers would probably be unable to persuade a judge to throw the claim out of court and could face a settlement of millions.
‘I think the BBC should be taking this extremely seriously. I think [a settlement] would be high seven figures. It’s a large amount of money.’
In July, US media giant Paramount agreed to pay Mr Trump $16 million (£13.5 million) to settle a lawsuit over an interview on CBS with former Vice-President Kamala Harris, which he said was edited too sympathetically.
But speaking to The Mail on Sunday, Lord Patten, a former chairman of the BBC, said: ‘The BBC board should tell Donald Trump they will see him in court. The BBC is part of our democracy, and an important part.
‘I am not in favour of kowtowing to Trump about this absurd charge.’
The BBC has apologised but declined to pay him damages, setting the scene for a high-profile legal showdown
Sir Craig Oliver, a former BBC executive and director of communications for Prime Minister David Cameron, said the corporation faced a ‘nightmare situation… It does clearly believe that it’s got a strong case but really the problem is that public money could be spent – or is going to be spent – fighting this or settling this.’
Former Tory Culture Secretary Sir John Whittingdale added: ‘It would be highly undesirable to have the BBC having to defend what was clearly a very serious failing of editorial judgment in an American court. It is not exactly going to help improve our relations with our closest ally.’
Writing in today’s Sunday Times, Mr Sunak said: ‘The BBC has too often misjudged the nation’s mood, mishandled its people and mismanaged its own processes.
‘One of the actions that the BBC should take now is to appoint an internal watchdog responsible for spotting problems and addressing them before they have turned into a scandal.
‘It cannot continue to sit back and wait for others to highlight its mistakes, and then ponder whether to react before comforting itself that any criticism must be driven by base political motives.’
A BBC spokesman said: ‘While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim.’
