Senior BBC figure Sir Robbie Gibb told a news editor not to investigate the Vote Leave campaign’s infamous claim that Brexit would mean £350m a week going to the NHS, according to a new book.
Sir Robbie, editor of live politics programmes at the time of the referendum, was reportedly “horrified” at the idea of scrutinising the claim after the vote and urged colleagues to “move on”.
Rob Burley, who edited The Andrew Marr Show at the time, made the claim in a new book about his time at the BBC called Why Is This Lying Bastard Lying To Me?
Sir Robbie, currently on the BBC board after a stint as No 10 comms director under Theresa May, was keen to avoid accusations the BBC wouldn’t “accept” the result of the Brexit vote.
“All that was done, [Gibb] told me. It was time to move on,” the author wrote. “He thought that anything that looked back at the referendum would look to voters like an attempt to rerun it.”
Mr Burley added: “It risked giving the impression that the BBC couldn’t accept the outcome and wanted to discredit the result.”
Defending his decision by speaking to Mr Burley for his book, Sir Robbie said it was “just not true that politicians lie all the time”.
“£350 million was not a lie at all. It’s just campaigning. Nobody ever says, ‘What about Labour saying you’ve got 24 hours to save the NHS?’ – but when it’s about Boris Johnson, they do. So I just have no truck with it.”
The former Andrew Marr editor said Sir Robbie’s views were ignored and the Vote Leave battle bus claim was interrogated.
“Holding the Brexiteers to account for their claims was, and remains, completely justifiable journalistically,” he wrote. “It’s the same principle as judging a general election-winning government against their manifesto promises once they’re in power.”
The book also claims that Andrew Marr threatened to quit after he was told he couldn’t interview Mr Johnson in 2019 unless the PM agreed to an interview with BBC colleague Andrew Neil.
“I thought ‘f*** you. It’s my show.’ I do my kind of interviews in my way,” Mr Marr told the programme’s editor.
The revelations come as a BBC review found there were “no concerns” about Richard Sharp’s integrity while he was BBC chairman after the cronyism row involving Boris Johnson.
The internal review was commissioned after he was embroiled in a row involving putting Mr Johnson’s Canadian cousin in touch with the then PM about facilitating a huge loan.
But the independent report by barrister Adam Heppinstall KC – commissioned by Rishi Sunak previously found he had breached the code for public appointments after he failed to “disclose potential perceived conflicts of interest” to the panel that interviewed candidates.
The former Conservative party donor resigned from his role at the corporation last month over his role helping the former prime minister secure the £800,000 facility. He will stand down at the end of June.
