Your Party is hosting its inaugural conference in Liverpool this weekend. Set up by Labour defectors Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, the event is set to be the moment where the party is officially born, giving members the opportunity to agree its structure and aims, three months on from its inception.
The conference is also the chance for supporters to decide on the left-leaning party's name: be it Your Party, Our Party, Popular Alliance or For the Many. But regardless of its name, seemingly for GB News, its not the party for press freedoms.
That is because Britain's News Channel were banned from entering the conference hall, despite myself and members of our news team contacting Your Party organisers on multiple occasions ahead of the event to be given accreditation. We were completely ignored by their press team, stone walled in fact. Texts, calls, WhatsApp messages ans emails were all ignored.
But being the People's Channel that covers all political spectrums, we presumed it must have been some oversight and decided to go ahead and try and speak to the Your Party team on the door to try and get inside. My usual patch is the Yorkshire and Humber region, so it was a very early start and took me more than two-and-a-half hours on more than a 100 mile journey to get to the ACC, where the conference is being held.
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With 2,000 delegates attending across the weekend, I joined the queue and, once inside, was unable to register for a ticket on the machine as my name did not show in the system. I asked an organiser to request if they could let me know where to find the press team. I was told to wait around until she heard back.
Meanwhile, whilst watching other journalists stream by me with their freshly printed conference passes in hand, I called the press team and, once again, my call went unanswered. So I sent another text, WhatsApp and our news team sent another email. Again, we were met with silence.
I chased up the organiser, who told me that a journalism briefing was being held by the press team and I should be there if I was to be allowed in. After hanging around like a bad smell for around an hour, I was finally told that I would not be allowed in.
Not by the press team, but by an organiser who clearly felt sorry for me after the long drive. I was not given the reason why GB News had been banned, nor the courtesy of a chat or even a message back from the press team to explain why we had been barred from the event.
Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana established the party together | PAI am a completely impartial reporter with no spin and no bias. I cover a wide range of news and always ensure all sides of the story are told. Today, like all days, I had no untoward motive and just wanted to cover what was said in the speeches, what the atmosphere was like and what decisions were made by the party and its members. There was no hidden agenda.
We are the Britain’s number one news channel. It is disappointing that our growing numbers of viewers and listeners were, in effect, also snubbed by Your Party. Most new parties want as much media attention as they can get in order to spread their message, garner interest in their cause and ultimately gain voters.
Perhaps some parties only want a certain type of media attention. Your Party have been contacted for a comment as to why GB News were not given access to the conference.
Watch this space as to whether we get a response.
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