Nigel Farage blasts BBC as Reform UK files formal complaint over 'planted audience member'

Plaid Cymru had been neck-and-neck with Reform UK ahead of polls opening in October last year, with Lindsay Whittle later opening up a 3,848-vote buffer over Llyr Powell.

The Welsh nationalists have since unveiled Alison Vyas, the mother who locked horns with Mr Powell, as a community candidate in Caerphilly.

Following the debate, Mrs Vyas also appeared in social media content for Plaid Cymru alongside Mr Whittle.

Responding to the revelations, Mr Farage said: “Trust in the BBC has been shaken by scandals in recent years, from Huw Edwards to the selective editing of a clip of President Trump.

“Now, this revelation will be the final straw for many people in Wales.

“How can there be any confidence that Reform will get a fair and balanced hearing when this is the kind of thing that happens at key election debates?”

A BBC spokesman said: “As with all BBC election debates, the audience was selected through an established and impartial vetting process designed to ensure a fair representation of political views.

“All participants were selected in line with our standard editorial guidelines.”

The Reform UK leader last year blasted the BBC after it emerged the broadcaster's director of nations was former Plaid Cymru chief executive Rhuannedd Richards.

However, accusations of bias against the BBC have also seen Broadcasting House come under fire over its coverage of Donald Trump and Israel’s war in Gaza.

The US President is threatening to sue the BBC after a Panorama documentary appeared to splice together footage to misrepresent Mr Trump’s January 6 speech.

Fury from the White House ultimately resulted in director-general Tim Davie and chief executive Deborah Turness resigning in November 2025.

Meanwhile, the BBC was accused of a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules after failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official.

The documentary, titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, was found to have been "materially misleading" after using the 13-year-old son of a top official from the proscribed terror group.

However, Reform UK has also revealed that the BBC has not given the same scrutiny to other parties when it comes to resignations at a local level.

The BBC covered 95 per cent of all Reform resignations, compared to less than 20 per cent for Tory and Labour losses.

Reform UK's policy chief Zia Yusuf also accused the BBC's flagship current affairs programme Question Time of "ambushing" him by including asylum seekers in its TV audience in Dover last month.

He said: "How on earth can it be deemed appropriate that people who broke into this country illegally should have a seat at the table?

"In a political discussion about illegal immigration on a BBC immigration special, it is so bewildering that in the car home, I genuinely had to sit there and just try to reassure myself that this did actually happen. I felt like I was on The Truman Show or something."

However, the BBC insisted panellists had not been ambushed, claiming: “All the parties represented on the panel were told the day before the show that there would be people in the audience who had been through the asylum system.”

Opinion polls suggest May's Welsh Parliament Election is a knife-edge race between Reform UK and Plaid Cymru.

Plaid Cymru topped Find Out Now's latest poll on 30 per cent, with Reform UK in a close second on 29 per cent.

Meanwhile, Labour's support has slumped from 40 per cent in 2021 to just 12 per cent, level with the Tories.

The Green Party secured nine per cent of the vote, leaving the Liberal Democrats in sixth place on just seven per cent.

However, the bias row from the Caerphilly debate comes just days after a Labour MS suggested banning Mr Farage from the upcoming TV debates ahead of the Welsh Parliament Election.

Alun Davies, who faces a major challenge from Reform UK in the mega-constituency of Blaenau Gwent, Caerffili & Rhymni, claimed Mr Farage has no right to join the leaders' debate.

He instead suggested the BBC should only invite politicians seeking election to Cardiff Bay.

Mr Davies said: “An argument like that may go down well in London, but it doesn’t wash in Wales.

The BBC hosted its first debate last weekend, with Reform UK not taking part in the televised showdown.

No party leaders took part in the debate, with Labour, the Tories, Liberal Democrats, Greens and Plaid Cymru being represented by other spokesmen.

However, the BBC has not yet decided whether Mr Farage will be able to participate in the upcoming leaders' debate.

A BBC Wales spokesman said: “We’ll be announcing our plans for election programmes and coverage in due course.”