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Philp: Sending BBC money to Mar-a-Lago is 'not smart'
The Independent
|November 17, 2025
Shadow minister says licence fee payers' funds should not be used to settle the corporation's row with President Trump
Sending BBC licence fee money “over to Mara-Lago” would not be a “smart” thing to do, the shadow home secretary has said after Donald Trump threatened to sue the corporation for up to $5bn.
Chris Philp said he believed the president is the “wronged party” in his battle with BBC, but that he did not think that using licence fee money to settle the matter would be a good idea.
Mr Trump told reporters on Air Force One over the weekend that he would sue the corporation for “anywhere between $1bn and $5bn probably sometime next week”.
His comments followed an apology from the BBC on Thursday in which it said the Panorama edit of Mr Trump’s Capitol speech on 6 January 2021 had given the “mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action”.
This story is from the November 17, 2025 edition of The Independent.
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