Nigel Farage's deplatforming of several media outlets from the Reform Party conference last week continues a growing trend of populist politicians refusing access to journalists in an attempt to control coverage and is a trick straight out of Donald Trump's media playbook.

Farage's party revoked a ticket to attend its Birmingham conference to Byline Times reporter Josiah Mortimer. Sam Bright, an investigative journalist for climate publication, DeSmog, was also blocked, as was pro-EU writer and campaigner Femi Olowule and the Observer's Carole Cadwalladr.

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ General Secretary: "For a party that claims to care about free speech and media freedom, Reform's decision to restrict journalists' access is a bad look.

"Cherry-picking attendance harms the breadth of diversity reporting on events - we urge a rethink of the policy, ensuring all journalists can attend future party conferences."

This was not an isolated incident from Reform, but an escalation of their standard practice. In July, the party had Oluwole physically removed from a party rally, with no reason offered.

He was also denied access to Labour's conference last weekend after the party suggested they could not "find any evidence the applicant is a working journalist or photographer with a political portfolio or working on behalf of a relevant media outlet".

Of this exclusion, the reporter who has published work in the Independent, the Guardian, Metro, and the New Statesman, claimed on X that Labour "simply lied to censor a journalist they don't like".

Ridiculing human rights protesters and banning young Black journalists, while embracing Tories and genocidal ambassadors, isn't convincing anyone that this Government represents change

Femi Oluwole

The party also barred Declassified reporter John McEvoy which was condemned by the UK Director of Reporters Without Borders and the National Union of Journalists.

Fiona O'Brien, UK director of Reporters Without Borders, told Declassified that it was "alarming to hear that an accredited journalist has had his request for a pass to Labour's conference denied, without a satisfactory explanation".

If the new government is really committed to open democracy, it needs to guarantee fair and free access to the political process for a wide range of media, not just for the mainstream

Fiona O'Brien, UK director of Reporters Without Borders

David Yelland, Sun editor from 1998 to 2003, warns that Reform's media strategy is to align

with the right-wing press as it abandons the beleaguered Conservative party.

Tim Gopsill, who writes for the Campaign For Press And Broadcasting Freedom, told Byline Times that politicians like Trump and Farage "who ban certain reporters from their events like to imagine they are taking on the powerful and the establishment who are out to get them" and added that "they think it convinces the powerless they are on their side".

Related reading: Deplatformed: Nigel Farage's Reform Bans Byline Times from their Party Conference

While, the former editor of The Journalist, explained that "sometimes these things may even be true. Much of the US media really are out to get Trump, and millions apparently do fall for his pose. But more people are repelled by his obnoxious behaviour.

"It just looks to everybody as if these politicians must have something to hide. That might well be true as well."

Denying press access not only leads to slanted and imbalanced coverage but creates public distrust, fosters polarisation and undermines democracy.

While Trump likes to shutdown and shutout critical voices, attempts to deny media access have occurred in the UK long before Farage and his Reform Party gave it a try.

The Trump Media Playbook

Trump has always had a difficult relationship with the press, not helped by the fact some media outlets kept a running tally of his lies (the Washington Post noted, in 2021, that he told 30,573 over four years), and he often lashed out with personal and insulting attacks on r...