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Michael Prescott's memo, accusing the BBC of systemic bias, has been incorrectly described by The Telegraph as an "internal" memo. However, this is inaccurate. The document was never commissioned by the BBC, but was authored by Prescott unsolicited and sent to the BBC after Prescott finished his stint as an advisor to the media company.

Among the outside organisations he cited for proof of bias within the BBC, presented as independent expert bodies, were History Reclaimed and UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI). Yet both organisations are deeply embedded in the political culture wars that have defined the Anglo-American populist right.

History Reclaimed and Lawyers for Israel

History Reclaimed describes itself as "an independent group of scholars" defending history from "political manipulation." Its founders include Cambridge historian Robert Tombs, who served on Boris Johnson's Heritage Advisory Board, and historian David Abulafia, chair of Historians for Britain, both long-standing advocates of Brexit and advisers to Conservative causes.

Among its senior advisers are Nigel Biggar, now a Conservative life peer in the House of Lords, and Zewditu Gebreyohanes, a Johnson-appointed trustee of the Victoria and Albert Museum and former director of Restore Trust, a campaign targeting the National Trust's work on colonialism and slavery.

Several of History Reclaimed's contributors are openly aligned with the American and European 'new right'. Portland State academic Bruce Gilley, whose article "The Case for Colonialism" defended Western imperialism, has publicly endorsed Donald Trump and published essays celebrating "MAGA imperialism." Fellow adviser Niall Ferguson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, has argued that Trump "is not a threat to democracy."

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That constellation places History Reclaimed within the same ideological universe as GB News and its US counterparts: a populist movement that recasts culture and scholarship as political battlegrounds. Prescott's decision to treat its work as objective evidence of BBC bias reveals more about his sympathies than about the broadcaster's journalism.

Another contributor is James Orr - senior advisor to Nigel Farage, and the "British Sherpa" of Trump's Vice President JD Vance.

If History Reclaimed embodies the culture-war flank of the campaign against the BBC, UK Lawyers for Israel provides its legal one. The group makes no pretence of neutrality, describing itself as "an association of lawyers who support Israel using their legal skills", and vehemently criticising the International Criminal Court's investigations of alleged war crimes in Gaza, and fundamentally opposing the International Court of Justice genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel.

Its directors include Jonathan D. C. Turner and Caroline Turner, who have threatened hospitals and arts venues with legal action over displays deemed sympathetic to Palestinians.

Among its patrons are former Conservative leader Lord Howard of Lympne KC and crossbench peers Lord Pannick and Lord Carlile, though the latter resigned after UKLFI sought to challenge the Government over arms-licence suspensions.

UK regulators are now examining UKLFI's conduct: the Solicitors Regulation Authority has opened an inquiry following complaints of intimidatory tactics.

The fact that Prescott presents these as evidence against BBC impartiality reveals the political bias at the root of his memo.

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