A Reform UK council has ended its ban on journalists from the area’s biggest local newspaper after being threatened with legal action over damaging the outlet’s freedom of expression.
Nottinghamshire county council, which has been led by Reform since the local elections earlier this year, said it was “committed to the principles of openness” after lifting the sanctions it had placed on journalists from the Nottingham Post and its website, Nottinghamshire Live.
The newspaper will now again be invited to public council events and will be added to the council’s distribution list for press releases. The ban had been in place for more than a month and had been condemned by Keir Starmer and local MPs.
The climbdown came just days after the outlet, owned by Reach, presented the council with a legal letter setting out further action it was considering taking.
The editor of the Nottingham Post, Natalie Fahy, pictured as she hands the leader of Nottinghamshire county council, Reform councillor Mick Barton, a copy of the Nottingham Post ahead of a full council meeting. Photograph: Joseph Raynor/Reach PLC
The company said the council was breaching local government regulations and article 10 of the European convention on human rights (ECHR), which protects freedom of expression and the right to express opinions “freely without government interference”.
The ban was imposed by the council’s leader, Mick Barton, after he objected to an article about splits in his group over local government reorganisation plans.
A letter from the county council’s team manager for litigation, Geoff Russell, said the restrictions had been the result of some “miscommunication or misunderstanding”.
“Nottinghamshire county council confirms that your clients are and remain entitled to attend functions, meetings which are open to the public,” the letter states.
“In addition, I can confirm that your clients will receive publications to email distributions lists to which they and all other media outlets are ordinarily entitled.”
It remains unclear whether Barton is willing to be interviewed by the outlet.
Natalie Fahy, Nottinghamshire Live’s editor, said: “I’m pleased this unprecedented ban has been lifted and the situation finally resolved so that we can continue to get on with our jobs as we always have done.
“That means asking questions of elected council officials, having access to publicly funded information and events and holding them to account on behalf of our communities in Nottinghamshire.
“This sends a firm message that journalists will not back down if our freedoms are attacked.”
Fahy had previously said the incident was a troubling sign of things to come should the party form the next government.
The ban had already been partly rolled back when it was lifted from a team of BBC-funded local democracy journalists that the paper also manages. However, the measures remained in place on other Nottinghamshire Live journalists until now.
