GB News hit out at media watchdog Ofcom on Monday afternoon in a press release following what it described as a “chilling” ruling by the regulator declaring that several of its politician-hosted shows had breached impartiality.

The ruling, issued Monday morning, listed five shows hosted by sitting Tory MPs that violated the broadcasting code and said that under the broadcasting code “a politician cannot be a newsreader, news interviewer or news reporter unless, exceptionally, there is editorial justification.” The shows in question were hosted by Tory MPs Jacob Rees-Mogg, Esther McVey and Philip Davies.

The watchdog did highlight that broadcasters did have “editorial freedom” to “[use] politicians to present current affairs or other non-news programmes” or as a guest but that in the cases presented the GB News hosts in question had “acted as newsreaders” and broken news live on air.

Ofcom said: “In our view, the use of politicians to present the news risks undermining the integrity and credibility of regulated broadcast news” because “politicians have an inherently partial role in society and news content presented by them is likely to be viewed by audiences in light of that perceived bias.”

Unhappy with the ruling, however, the network said that it was “deeply concerned by the decisions” and promised to raise its objection to the ruling in the “strongest possible terms.”

GB News accused Ofcom of having “arbitrarily changed the test” for compliance on impartiality.

“These decisions go against established precedent and raises serious questions about Ofcom’s oversight over its own regulations,” it claimed. “It appears that Ofcom is trying to extend the regulations, rather than enforcing definitions which have been settled for many years.”

The statement argued that the ruling was “a chilling development for all broadcasters, for freedom of speech, and for everyone in the United Kingdom.”

Earlier in the day GB News host Darren Grimes tweeted asking why LBC’s shows hosted by Labour politicians like Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy were not seen as in breach of broadcasting rules, later accusing the watchdog for “bias.”

Ofcom’s issue, however, is not with politician-hosted shows rather the decision by those hosts to break news or act as news interviewers “without exceptional justification.” The regulator cited one of Rees-Mogg’s shows it had been asked to investigate as an acceptable editorial justification when he reported live as an eyewitness during an unexpected incident at Buckingham Palace.

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