Starmer under pressure to tell Trump to call off ‘outrageous’ $10bn lawsuit against BBC

Sir Keir Starmer is under mounting pressure to intervene over Donald Trump’s “outrageous” attempts to sue the BBC for $10bn in response to the editing of a speech he made before the 2021 attack on the Capitol.

The BBC said documents filed at a court late on Monday in a federal court in Miami asked for $5bn (£3.7bn) in damages for defamation, as well as the same amount for a claim of violating trade practices.

President Trump’s lawyers argue the depiction of him given in the edit, which aired in a Panorama documentary a week before the results of the 2024 US election, “was false and defamatory” and they also said “the BBC intentionally and maliciously sought to fully mislead its viewers around the world”.

In a short statement on Tuesday, the BBC confirmed it plans to fight the lawsuit. A spokesperson for the corporation said: “As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case. We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”

A host of senior political figures have called on the prime minister to speak to Mr Trump and stand up for the BBC in the face of the president’s “outrageous legal threat”.

Former culture Sir John Whittingdale, who negotiated the last BBC charter, expressed surprise that Sir Keir had not already taken the opportunity to try to persuade the US president not to go ahead with his legal action.

Speaking to The Independent, he said: “In the end this is our national broadcaster we are talking about and it is extremely damaging for this to happen.

“I think the action is largely symbolic because it will be very hard for Donald Trump to prove damages, but it should never have got to this point.

“The prime minister is supposed to have this strong relationship with the president and he should have intervened in the conversations he has had with him before this happened.

“He certainly needs to get on the phone now to the president about it. This is bad for the BBC, bad for Britain’s reputation and bad for Trump himself.”

Sir Keir had been expected to talk to Trump about the BBC after the scandal broke and the US president first threatened to sue, but after a delay of almost a week, their subsequent conversation only touched on the potential peace deal for Ukraine.

Sir John’s call came as Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey also piled pressure on the prime minister to persuade the president to back down.

Sir Ed said the prime minister should “stand up for the BBC against Trump’s outrageous legal threat”.

Meanwhile Mark Damazer, a former controller of BBC Radio 4 and ex-assistant director of BBC News, told the Today programme it would be “extremely damaging to the BBC’s reputation not to fight the case”.

“This is about the BBC’s independence. And, unlike American media organisations which have coughed up the money, the BBC doesn’t have commercial business interests that depend on President Trump’s beneficence in the White House,” he said.

“President Trump was not harmed by what the BBC mistakenly did in its Panorama edit. The programme wasn’t shown in the United States. He was neither financially nor politically hurt, and the BBC should definitely fight this case.”

Minister Stephen Kinnock said the Labour Party will “always stand up for the BBC as a vitally important institution” but insisted that it is an “independent organisation”.

But former culture secretary Baroness Nicky Morgan warned that it was the BBC’s board which “needs to get a grip,” saying Mr Trump’s lawsuit was “inevitable”.

She told The Independent: “I think Trump suing was inevitable. I doubt he’ll succeed. No the prime minister should not intervene, the BBC is big enough to own this mess and their board needs to get a grip.”

After the report was leaked, BBC chairman Samir Shah apologised on behalf of the BBC over an “error of judgment” and accepted the editing of the 2024 documentary gave “the impression of a direct call for violent action”.

The fallout from the report also led to the resignation of both director-general Tim Davie and head of BBC News Deborah Turness.

BBC News reported lawyers for the BBC had given a lengthy response to the president’s claims before Mr Trump filed the lawsuit and said “there was no malice in the edit and that Trump was not harmed by the programme, as he was re-elected shortly after it aired”.

The complaint was filed at the US district court for the southern district of Florida, and names BBC, BBC Studios Distribution and BBC Studios Production as defendants.

The main streaming platform that carries Panorama, BBC iPlayer, and the TV channel that carries it, BBC One, are not available in the US.

Mr Trump has a history of suing news organisations in the US and is engaged in legal action with the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, the legal action has overshadowed the negotiations for the renewal of the BBC charter which have just begun.

The BBC is pushing for a higher licence fee which is already proving controversial.

Dame Caroline Dinenage, chair of the Commons culture, media and sports committee, said: “With Charter Review kicking off, it’s deeply regrettable that the Panorama edit, and BBC’s failure to grip it earlier, has led to them now having to divert licence payers’ money to respond to legal action from President Trump.

“The BBC is right to stand firm in the face of this legal action. But, this is a wake-up call to the importance of strengthening editorial processes and addressing concerns more swiftly, if it’s to remain the world’s most trusted broadcaster.”