Green Party leader brands GB News 'far-right organisation' on BBC in on-air row

The Green Party co-leader has branded GB News a “far-right propagandist organisation” during a TV discussion on climate change.

Carla Denyer attacked GB News while debating its political correspondent Tom Harwood on BBC’s Politics Show on Tuesday.

Denyer argued that anything Harwood said had to be taken “with a pinch of salt” due to his channel’s political leanings.

Harwood hit back, accusing the Green Party co-leader of a “ridiculous ad hominem attack”.

Denyer, co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, said: “We all know you work for GB News, which is a far-right propagandist organisation.

“We need to take what you’re saying with a pinch of salt.

“I just think it’s useful to have a context of where these messages are coming from.”

Denyer added climate denial was now socially unacceptable and organisations that were previously behind it were moving on to a “climate delaying approach”.

Watch: Which countries release the most CO2?

Read more: UK pledges support to ramp up offshore wind energy at Cop27

Harwood responded: “I’m not sure what is climate delaying about championing the reduction in CO2 emissions this country has achieved... or championing the need for onshore wind farms, about combating the Green Party where it has blocked onshore solar farms."

He called it a “ridiculous ad hominem attack” and accused Denyer of launching the attack because her arguments were “not standing up”.

Harwood claimed he and plenty of his colleagues at GB News were saying progressive things about ways to tackle climate change.

Denyer then accused Harwood of setting up a “strawman” argument that she suggested no progress had been made on climate change.

She said the science was clear that progress in the UK and rest of the world on tackling climate change was not moving fast enough.

GB News’s new chairman Alan McCormick has previously tweeted at least three articles by climate science deniers, an investigation by global warming blog DeSmog revealed.

One of them from 2015 was published by a US fossil fuel-backed think-tank called Heartland Institute and was titled “Why I am a climate sceptic”.

The writer Patrick Moore called for readers to “celebrate carbon dioxide” and argued against a human-made climate emergency.

Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak said on Monday climate and energy security went "hand in hand" and world leaders must act quickly to address the impacts of climate change.