British sports presenter and former footballer Gary Lineker is allowed to present again at the BBC. Lineker and the BBC have made new agreements, reports the British broadcaster Monday. The presenter was suspended by the BBC on Friday because he had criticized British asylum policy earlier that week on Twitter. The BBC felt that his tweet had violated an important broadcaster’s guideline, impartiality, and that he was therefore unable to appear on TV.
Lineker called the bill “immeasurably cruel” to expel migrants coming to the UK via the Channel as quickly as possible. He also wrote that the language of government “is not much different from that of Germany in the 1930s.” Although he initially received mostly comments on this comparison, he received a lot of support after the BBC suspended him. His fellow sports presenters and commentators boycotted BBC sports broadcasts this weekend.
The boycott quickly expanded the discussion to the broadcaster’s motivations: did the BBC suspend Lineker because it believed he had been partisan, or is the BBC listening too much to the ruling Conservative Party and the right-wing media? They quickly called for Lineker to be suspended. But according to director-general Tim Davie, there is no question of political influence, he writes in a response on Monday. Davie also announces that the BBC will commission independent research into its social media guidelines, with a particular focus on employees and freelancers who, like Lineker, work off the news.