Trump's anti-press tactics are bad enough in the US. Now Reform is importing them to the Midlands | Jon Allsop

"On the day that he returned to office in January, Donald Trump signed an order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. A few days later, the Associated Press, a leading global news agency that is also a linguistic bible for newsrooms across the US, said that while it would acknowledge Trump's order, it would mostly continue to use the original name. In response, the White House banned AP journalists from certain media availabilities."

"This week, Nottinghamshire's Reform-led county council said that it would impose a sweeping ban on the Nottingham Post, its affiliated website and BBC-funded reporters who work there. At issue, apparently, was a story that the paper had written about a proposed reorganisation of local government. The leader of the council insisted that he welcomes scrutiny, but has a duty to combat misinformation."

"In the US, there is a clear longer-term trend of Republican officials imposing poorly justified restrictions on the press. But one doesn't need to look as far as that to understand the Nottinghamshire ban. Indeed, Reform has been accused before of shutting out reporters, or otherwise treating them with disrespect: last year, the party reportedly excluded certain adversarial outlets and journalists from its conference; earlier this summer, Reform's leader Nigel Farage accused local reporters in Scotland of helping to coordinate protests against him."

Donald Trump signed an order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. The Associated Press acknowledged the order but continued using the original name. The White House then banned AP journalists from certain media availabilities after Trump accused the agency of failing to follow the law. Nottinghamshire's Reform-led county council imposed a sweeping ban on the Nottingham Post and BBC-funded reporters over a story about local government reorganisation. The council leader said he welcomes scrutiny but must combat misinformation; the Post's editor called the decision a massive attack on local democracy. Reform has been accused of excluding adversarial outlets and mistreating reporters, and critics see parallels with broader hard-right tactics.

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