CONSERVATIVE campaigner Darren Grimes is to join GB News with his “Real Britain” show, it has been announced.

The broadcaster, launched with Andrew Neil at the helm back in the summer, has struggled with poor viewing figures – and the loss of a number of high-profile journalists like Neil, and recent Simon McCoy.

Former BBC interviewer Neil left the channel after just eight shows, and later admitted that it “would have killed him” to carry on, with technical problems causing chaos.

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He said he had disagreements with senior managers about the channel’s political direction, and recently confirmed he now doesn’t watch GB News programmes at all.

While Neil and his team insisted at the outset that GB News would cover “the stories that matter to you and those that have been neglected”, and vowed to set their own news agenda, the programming has become increasing compared to Fox News.

One of the biggest ratings hits for GB News has been Nigel Farage’s interview with former US president Donald Trump. Ex-Ukip chief Farage is considered one of the channel’s big hitters.

Now, controversial Brexit campaigner Grimes is joining the mix with a weekend show called “Real Britain with Darren Grimes”.

The BeLeave founder was fined £20,000 by the Electoral Commission in 2018 after it said there was evidence that the campaign group spent more than £675,000 with a political consultancy company, in co-ordination with Vote Leave, across social media advertising. Grimes won his appeal against the decision and his fine was overturned.

Grimes has since been involved with Turning Point UK, sister group to pro-Trump organisation Turning Point USA, and launched his own media organisation called “Reason” – which pledged to support those who hide their “political views for fear of being called homophobic, a TERF [or] racist”.

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In 2020, during global Black Lives Matter protests, Grimes interviewed historian David Starkey for the website. In the exchange, Starkey prompted outrage by saying that slavery “was not genocide, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many damn blacks in Africa or in Britain”.

Grimes said he rejected in the “strongest possible terms” what Starkey had said, adding that he wished he’d “caught it at the time”.

From January, Grimes will be given a platform on GB News to present Real Britain with Darren Grimes on Saturdays and Sundays.