ITV GMB ‘impartiality’ row explodes as fans slam Ed Balls response to first migrant detainments: ‘Reading from wife’s script!’
Several Good Morning Britain viewers were left less than impressed with how the show’s presenters, Ed Balls and Ranvir Singh, delivered a piece of breaking news from the Home Office on Thursday.
The Home Office revealed on Thursday morning that a number of Channel crossing migrants were being held at removal centres after making the journey to the Kent coast from France at lunchtime yesterday.
As part of the new policy, Britain will make its referrals to France within the next 72 hours, giving Paris time to respond over the following two weeks.
Lauding the news, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who is Balls’ spouse, told the media: “Yesterday, under the terms of this groundbreaking new treaty, the first group of people to cross the Channel were detained after their arrival at Western Jet Foil and will now be held in detention until they can be returned to France.
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“That sends a message to every migrant currently thinking of paying organised crime gangs to go to the UK that they will be risking their lives and throwing away their money if they get into a small boat.
“No one should be making this illegal and dangerous journey that undermines our border security and lines the pockets of the criminal gangs.”
Singh and Balls, who were joined by Kwasi Kwarteng and Nels Abbey, were tasked with delivering the news to viewers. Singh was the one who read out the initial announcement.
“What do they mean by detained in this situation?” Abbey asked, to which Balls promptly replied: “I think what they mean is that in the Home Office system, or border system, they are detained in that system with the intention to remove them from the removal centre back to France.”
Providing further information, Balls continued: “There is then a period where they get legal advice, then France, I think, has a fortnight under the agreement to make a decision.
“So this is the beginning of a process that will unfold over the next few weeks. I guess the first ones will take longer because that’s where the legal processes are being established, but that has begun.”
Abbey was seemingly unimpressed: “The news, if there is any breaking news or so, I would say fair enough to the Home Office (but) I’d say this is more communication than news because if there’s news, it’s are they successfully returned or not.”
“Nels, makes a very fair point,” Kwarteng weighed in, prompting Balls to stick up for the government and assure them: “That won’t be far off.”
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Kwarteng then weighed in with his thoughts. “It could be up to three months, and the other thing is we don’t know what the legal process is,” he said.
“The understanding is that a lot of these people will have the ability to appeal on ECHR [European Court of Human Rights] grounds. Once you go down that route, no one can say how long that process will be.”
Balls chipped back in to provide context: “Although if you think about what an appeal usually is under the ECHR process, it’s either that you are being deprived of your right to family life, and for many migrants arriving on a boat, they’re not being deprived of family life in Britain…
“Or they are being sent back to an unsafe country. Their claim will be that France is somehow unsafe, which is a much harder argument to make. So that legal case will now be established.”
“Well, that’s what we’ll establish and people will challenge and push those boundaries,” Kwarteng summarised before Abbey concluded: “And rightfully so, rightfully so. You have to make sure that these are vulnerable people in desperate situations, and we’re not in the business of making them any more desperate.
“The question still remains, what is France going to do with them when they return there? Are they gonna come back here? What has happened? The key thing from a humanitarian point is we’ve got to stop the boats.”
While the discussion among the panel remained amicable, it’s safe to say plenty of ITV viewers at home felt there was a “conflict of interests” with Balls explaining a government policy while being married to the Home Secretary.
Several took to social media to express their frustration at witnessing Balls appear to read from the government’s playbook, with one X user stating: “Eddie again reading from the Mrs’s script!! CONFLICT OF INTEREST and bias!!”
“Balls guessing… he already knows FFS! #gmb,” a second echoed before a third weighed in on X: “No doubt Ed had the call from Mrs Balls,” followed by laughing emojis.
“Someone’s frantically sticking up for the home office here,” a fourth weighed in before a fifth sarcastically wrote: “Oh look, the impartial husband of the Home Secretary.”
Elsewhere, a sixth shared their verdict on the discussion: “The only reason Ed Balls said ‘I think it means’; in regard to the home office statement about detainment of migrants from today; is because the woman he is married to (#yvettecooper) has no idea what it means either and can’t explain it to him #gmb.” (sic)
Meanwhile, the discussion also prompted a number of other reactions from viewers who felt the policy still didn’t go far enough to deter those trying to cross the Channel.