Gary Lineker has said that he is “still bewildered” by the row with BBC bosses over his remarks on social media criticising the government’s policy on asylum-seekers.
The star presenter and former England footballer was briefly told to step back from Match of the Day earlier this month over his Twitter output, sparking a crisis in BBC sports programming as his fellow presenters, pundits and commentators withdrew their labour in solidarity.
In a new podcast released on Monday, Lineker – who was swiftly reinstated – said he believed the “silly” row had been “so disproportionate”.
“I never contemplated it would be an issue at all,” he told the Rest is Politics podcast with former Tory minister Rory Stewart and Labour ex-spin doctor Alastair Campbell. Adding that “I love the BBC”, he continued: “People make mistakes – they recognised that, they apologised.”
Returning to the issue of asylum, Lineker said: “Let’s have some empathy for these poor people who have to flee persecution or war. If we can at least show some empathy, some kindness.”
In the tweet igniting the row, Lineker had responded to a government clip of home secretary Suella Braverman setting out the government’s highly controversial plans to effectively ban most people from seeking asylum in the UK, saying: “Good heavens, this is beyond awful.”
Responding to a Twitter user who said “it was “easy to pontificate when it doesn’t affect you”, Lineker added: “There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?”
Asked on the podcast about how the row had happened, Lineker said: “There was the policy, which when they spelled it out, I thought ... I don’t think this is going to work, is it even going to be legal?
“Obviously we all recognise there’s a massive problem, but it’s going to get worse as well with climate change and stuff like that, people fleeing their countries, and I just thought ‘come on’.”
His remark about 1930s Germany “was never meant as any kind of comparison with the Holocaust or anything like that”, Lineker said.
The presenter added that he had been “moved” by the solidarity shown by his colleagues, with Ian Wright the first to have declared they would not present Match of the Day without him.
“To get that team spirit, that camaraderie – it moved me,” he said.
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