THE BBC have been urged to stop “minimising the significance of Scotland and the SNP” after issuing a humbling correction to a Brexit blunder on Jeremy Vine’s radio show.
The broadcaster was forced to apologise after the early afternoon BBC Radio 2 presenter said there was no UK party “saying we’ve got to get back in”, during a discussion of the country’s relationship with the European Union post-Brexit.
This ignored the SNP as the only mainstream political party campaigning to re-join the EU.
Plaid Cymru, the left-wing Welsh independence party, supports the UK re-joining the single market and for an independent Wales to join the trading bloc – despite most of the country voting Leave in 2016.
After complaints from the party, the broadcaster said: “To be clear, the SNP, the third largest party at Westminster, believes that the best way to build a more prosperous and equal Scotland is to be a full independent member of the EU and is in favour of EU membership.
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“We have also deleted a video clip of the original exchange which was embedded in a @BBCPolitics tweet on the same day marking three years since the UK left the European Union.”
Michael Russell, president of the SNP, said: "It is right that BBC News have admitted that they got this one badly wrong and have, after we pursued, published a note on their corrections and clarifications page.
"BBC bosses must now act to ensure that news and current affairs output stops minimising the significance of Scotland and the SNP.”
Taking aim at the BBC’s flagship debate programme, Russell said he hoped the correction would be flagged up to the team behind Question Time.
He added: "We do hope this correction and clarification, along with a reminder of their editorial guidelines, has been shared internally with the BBC Question Time executive and editorial team."
It comes after the SNP were “uninvited” from the programme, hosted by Fiona Bruce, when its top story that day was the resignation of Nicola Sturgeon.
Russell told this paper producers had invited one of the party’s MPs – only to rescind the invite.
He said: “The BBC needs to get a grip of Question Time - their flagship programme has totally lost the plot.
"Inviting the SNP on and then uninviting us is a bizarre stunt to pull and one that utterly fails audiences in Scotland.”
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