Home Office officials altered a Twitter post about the illegal migration bill to remove an image of the newsreader Huw Edwards after complaints from the BBC. The tweet, which contains a video explainer for the divisive legislation, was posted on Tuesday by the Home Office from its official account and initially the accompanying image seen on Twitter feeds was of Edwards, the veteran broadcaster. The Guardian understands that the department did not ask permission to use the clip of Edwards featured in the video and the broadcaster personally objected to the juxtaposition. On Wednesday, the BBC asked the Home Office to remove the footage. Rather than delete it, the department amended the clip so that Edwards no longer appeared in the first frame, although he does remain in the video. A BBC spokesperson said: “We contacted the Home Office last week to object to their use of BBC footage and asked them to remove it.”
The interjection comes at a time of increased tension around the relationship between the public broadcaster and the UK government amid a row over Gary Lineker’s criticism of Tory migration policy. Lineker was suspended from presenting Match of the Day on Saturday, triggering a wave of sports presenters, pundits and commentators to in effect go on strike in protest at his treatment.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Showing news reports to set out context is common practice, it does not imply support for the bill. When we were informed that an automatically generated thumbnail displayed a newsreader, we immediately updated it.” Home Office sources insisted the video should not be perceived as party political but as an explainer to help the public understand the new policy. As well as Edwards, the three-minute video contains a clip of Channel 5 News and talking heads with immigration enforcement officers and the ex-Ukip MEP and leadership hopeful Stephen Wolfe, who now heads up a migration policy thinktank. It concludes with comments from the home secretary, Suella Braverman. In the Edwards clip, he informs viewers that “at least 430 migrants crossed the English Channel to the UK yesterday”. Figures on the number of crossings then appear over ominous electronic music and footage of choppy seas, before immigration enforcement officers and Wolfe describe the involvement of people-smugglers over images of Calais camps and people scrambling into dinghies. Braverman’s remarks are spoken over drone footage of the white cliffs of Dover.