Industry body says use of private investigators against reporters is ‘attack on our democracy’ after Banks apparently admitted doing so
The businessman and Reform UK donor Arron Banks is facing calls to lay out the extent of his surveillance of journalists, described by an industry body as an “attack on our democracy”.
The News Media Association (NMA), which represents regional and national media, raised concerns after Banks appeared to admit over the weekend to hiring private investigators to spy on a Sunday Times journalist.
The revelation, first reported in the New Statesman, has led to fears that other journalists examining the funding of Reform and Nigel Farage, including those at the Guardian, could have been targeted.
When asked over the weekend whether he had commissioned investigators to surveil reporters at the Guardian, Banks said he was “not really interested in the Guardian” but declined to comment further.
The Guardian, along with the Sunday Times, has broken a series of stories in recent months revealing how cash has been given to Reform and Farage personally from donors and wealthy benefactors.
Theo Bamber, the chief executive of the NMA, said aggressive attempts to deter journalistic inquiry were at risk of becoming normalised.
He said: “Using private investigators to try to deter journalists from making legitimate inquiries about public figures is an attack on our democracy. Sadly, intimidation and abuse of local and national journalists is increasingly used as a weapon to limit scrutiny and deflect attention away from matters of public interest. This must not become normalised.
“Ministers must wake up to this threat to our democracy and do much more to protect the independent journalism which underpins our democratic way of life.”
According to the New Statesman, Banks instructed Precision Risk and Intelligence, a private investigations company he once owned, to examine Gabriel Pogrund, the editor of the Sunday Times’ Insight investigations team.
In response to inquiries, Banks told the magazine: “We believe the Sunday Times used hacked information and that was an area of interest. We do have an investigative arm that’s got advanced capabilities.”
The Sunday Times has strongly rejected Banks’s suggestion.
Banks, when asked directly by the New Statesman whether he had paid investigators to look into Pogrund, responded: “When you live by the sword, you die by the sword.”
Jemimah Steinfeld, the chief executive of Index on Censorship, said Banks should be open and transparent about the extent of his surveillance of journalists.
She said: “I really, really hope that it’s not happening to other journalists. But my fear is that it will be, because Gabriel is not the only one who’s asking the right questions about Reform.
