THE BBC has issued an apology to Nigel Farage after he was misquoted on last night’s edition of Newsnight.
The Reform UK leader’s lawyers sent a letter to the broadcaster after Matt Chorley repeatedly misquoted his response to the murder of Henry Nowak.
Matt Chorley misquoted Nigel Farage three times over the course of the episode Credit: BBC
The statement was misquoted from Farage’s emergency broadcast on Henry Nowak’s murder Credit: Reform UK
Farage had called for the public to respond with “pure cold rage” but in an interview with on the show, Chorley used the phrase “white cold rage”.
Reform argued that the misquote added a racial element to Farage’s words and changed his meaning.
Earlier this afternoon the revealed that it had sent a private apology to Farage and published a public one on its website.
In an X post, Chorley said: “I owe an apology.
“During last night’s Newsnight, we covered the murder of Henry Nowak and the political reaction to the case, including discussing Nigel Farage’s comments about ‘pure, cold rage’. However I referred to ‘white cold rage’.
“This was a mistake on my part, a misremembering of the quote. It didn’t change the content of the interview but I should have got the quote right. I apologise to Nigel Farage for this.”
A further apology will be broadcast at the start of tonight’s Newsnight, the corporation has promised, while last night’s episode will be removed from and BBC Sounds.
Farage said his legal team had “written to the BBC demanding a full on-air apology and investigation into the defamatory comments made about me on Newsnight”.
In a four-page letter, his lawyers slammed the broadcaster for converting ” a criticism of discriminatory conduct by the authorities into an apparent appeal to race.
“It suggests that Mr Farage, far from condemning racialised treatment, was himself invoking race as a basis for public anger.
“In a national debate in which his opponents are already accusing him of inflaming racial tension, that alteration is not inaccuracy at the margins.
“It is seriously defamatory, and on the material available it was deliberate.”
The statement was misquoted from an emergency broadcast Farage made which blasted the officers who arrested Henry Nowak for
, 23, knifed in a random street attack as the teenager made his way home from a night out.
When arrived on the scene in Southampton, Hampshire, Digwa also accused the teen of making racist remarks – causing officers to place Henry in handcuffs as he lay dying.
leader Farage praised Henry’s family for reacting in such a “dignified way”, but said Brits are living in a “two-tier culture”.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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