Mercy Muroki: The BBC should not shut out the legitimate views of people who fund it

The BBC has been subjected an increasing amount of criticism over the last couple of years for what many see as blatant left-leaning bias, pandering to liberal metropolitan elites, and overindulging identity-politics ideologues...

Given that it's still a criminal offence in the UK to watch or record any live TV without paying the BBC license fee, I don't blame people for feeling like their freedom to choose is in a permanent state of being held to ransom by the broadcaster.

But the BBC finally seems to have got the message. A majority of Brits may still like the BBC, as polls show, but having ideological perspectives...that have not stood the test of science or reality... shoved down their throats presented as fact is a formula for demise...

For some time, the BBC editorial line seems to have been held hostage by radical LGBTQ+ and trans rights lobbyists – mainly through the broadcaster's involvement in Stonewall's divisive Diversity Champions scheme...

Stonewall is an organisation which positions itself as an LGBTQ+ equality advocacy organisation. Isn't it curious then that, amongst many others, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has itself dumped Stonewall as an equalities advisor...

It seems to me that so much of what they advocate seems to come at the expense of women's rights.

Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, for example, show that Stonewall has instructed public bodies to remove words such as “mother” from their HR policies because it offends trans people.

And an article published by The Times this morning reports that Senior BBC presenters have called for a review after being massively concerned that Stonewall effectively succeeded in policing and dictating what sort of language the BBC used in its reporting.

For example, the BBC repeatedly referred to a male sex offender who identified as a transgender woman as she, unthinkingly and uncritically.

And, when the BBC recently published the stories of lesbians who said they were being bullied by the LGBTQ+ community, 16,000 people signed a letter to the BBC demanding they apologise for posting the article.

In other words, demanding the BBC apologise for reporting two sides to a story. This is completely characteristic of identity politics ideologues – they want to censor all critique against them.

Well, now the BBCs head of news has told LGBT staff they're going to have to get used to being exposed to views they disagree with.

Fran Unswurth told LGBTQ staff in a meeting: "You’ll hear things you don’t personally like and see things you don’t like — that’s what the BBC is, and you have to get used to that. These are the stories we tell. We can’t walk away from the conversation.”

Of course, this has been met with much criticism from some corners...

For me, the fact it's controversial for our national broadcaster to state that its staff have to be open to different views is really testament to the intellectual decay at the heart of BBC culture.

The BBC survives only because the British people are compelled to prop it up, and it should not shut out the legitimate views of people up and down this country who fund it.

I don't want to cancel the BBC. I want it to survive and thrive. But ONLY, and ONLY, if it maintains the highest standards of impartiality and the highest level of openness to alternative perspectives.

These latest moves give me hope that it does. And long may it continue on that trajectory.