'Enforced veganism': GB News flouts broadcast rules, climate activists say

The UK's TV and radio regulator is allowing GB News and others to "flout" accuracy rules and broadcast climate change denial, say campaigners. Instances cited include describing global heating as "the climate scam" and suggesting the government was going to introduce "enforced veganism".

- Damian Carrington Environment editor

Ofcom has received 1,221 complaints related to climate change since January 2020, when its searchable database began. None resulted in a ruling that the broadcasting code had been breached. Only two such breaches have been found since 2007.

More than 50 of the complaints were made about GB News programmes by the campaign group Reliable Media since March 2024. The group said the segments included false statements about climate change that had either gone unchallenged or had failed to be balanced.

Ofcom assessed but did not pursue any of the complaints. The campaigners accused Ofcom of "effectively suspending its accuracy rules on this life-and-death issue".

In contrast, the French regulator Arcom has found four broadcasting code breaches related to climate change in the last two years. In one, the rightwing channel CNews was fined €20,000 (£17,000) for a segment in which a speaker said climate change was "a lie, a scam".

GB News said the campaigners were politically motivated and wanted to shut down public debate.

The Guardian reviewed a sample of 18 of the complaints made by Reliable Media. They included GB News host Ben Leo describing global heating as "the climate scam" in April 2025 and a guest on a September 2024 show hosted by the Reform UK leader Nigel Farage criticising those "who say 'Oh global warming, global warming, global warming' as though this were a problem. You just go outside tonight, you'll see it isn't really". In November 2024, the GB News host Leo Kearse misleadingly suggested that the UK government was going to introduce "enforced veganism".