The government has apologised to the TalkTV presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer for branding her a “vaccine sceptic” in a report that was shared with US counterterrorism officials.
Hartley-Brewer, 55, who began hosting an afternoon show on the News UK channel this month, said that it was “very sinister” of the government to monitor a journalist and share information with its US counterparts.
“I am shocked that the British government spent time during a pandemic monitoring, attempting to censor and smearing a journalist who was simply trying to do her job by asking the right questions and challenging the prevailing orthodoxy,” she said.
Hartley-Brewer was named in a vaccine hesitancy report from the Cabinet Office’s rapid response unit, which was tasked with combating Covid disinformation, after she tweeted disparagingly in response to a newspaper article about a joint letter from the health secretary and education secretary.
The article, published in The Daily Telegraph in October 2021, covered the plea to parents to get their children vaccinated from Sajid Javid and Nadhim Zahawi, prompting Hartley-Brewer to share it on Twitter/X with the words “No. No. No. NO!!!!”
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As a result, Hartley-Brewer, who was vaccinated against Covid-19 and regularly spoke about the benefits on her show, was named as a known “sceptic” in a departmental report published that month.
The report was distributed to individuals including one email address within the US government’s global engagement centre, with information about Hartley-Brewer’s criticism of Covid policies also shared with US officials on three other occasions.
The rapid response unit, which was disbanded late last year, has also identified David Davis, the Conservative MP, in its hesitancy reports.
“A government unit that was supposed to challenge foreign governments disseminating lies online was used against British journalists and MPs expressing reasonable concerns about Covid policies. And now we have proof that this same unit was actually responsible for lying about me,” Hartley-Brewer said.
“I am particularly concerned by the fact that the British government shared this false information about me with a US government counterterrorism unit set up to tackle Russian, Chinese and Iranian propaganda. This is very sinister.”
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In its apology, the government said that its description of Hartley-Brewer was “inaccurate and not impartial”.
Its actions came to light through an investigation by the civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch into the government’s counter-disinformation activities. Silkie Carlo, director of the body, called on parliament to open an inquiry into the unit’s work.
“It is outrageous that UK government ‘counter-disinformation’ staff monitored British journalists and spread harmful misinformation about them across the corridors of power, not only in the UK but even with counterterror officials in the US,” Carlo said.
“It’s absurd that taxpayers are funding this multimillion-pound counter-dissent project under the guise of ‘countering disinformation’, but also extremely chilling that so many journalists, politicians and ordinary citizens have been treated like the enemy within simply for criticising controversial government policies.”
TalkTV is owned by News UK, publisher of The Times.
