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Baroness Fox told peers “groupthink” at the national broadcaster meant that there was a lack of diversity in political opinion.<\/p>\n
She said the corporation’s output and reputation for impartiality was being badly impacted by the failure to embrace alternative views.<\/p>\n
The crossbench peer told the Lords: “I even know people at the BBC who voted to leave the European Union, but they couldn’t come out and they remain secret Brexiteers to this day.<\/p>\n
“That’s how groupthink works.<\/p>\n
“Not everyone agrees, but everyone knows the narrative you’re expected to follow.<\/p>\n
“The embrace of such orthodoxies is rarely spotted as a threat to the impartiality of BBC output but it is a new and very present danger.”<\/p>\n
She made her remarks as part of a debate on the “BBC’s value to the UK and a wider global audience”.<\/p>\n
Baroness Fox, who was appointed to the Chamber by Boris Johnson as part of a bid to increase the number of pro-Brexit voices in the Lords, said she was speaking as a ‘critical friend” of the BBC.<\/p>\n
She was not alone in her criticism, with other Brexit-backing peers echoing her argument and calling for the broadcaster to do more to encourage diversity of opinion.<\/p>\n
Tory former Cabinet minister Lord Lilley said: “Despite its tedious obsession with gender and racial diversity, the BBC suffers from a lack of diversity of opinion and an overwhelming liberal metropolitan bias that manifests itself less in what is said than what is not said.<\/p>\n
“The voice is not heard, the questions not asked, the issues not addressed.”<\/p>\n
The three areas in which this bias and censorship are most “blatant”, Lord Lilley said, are the “EU\/Brexit, energy\/climate change and immigration\/skills”.<\/p>\n