BBC presenter Matt Chorley has apologised for misquoting Reform UK leader Nigel Farage during a Newsnight interview, saying the error was “a mistake on my part” and that he had “misremembered” the quote. BBC News first reported the apology on Wednesday.
The incident centers on Farage’s comments following the murder of 18-year-old Henry Nowak in Southampton in December 2024. In an online video on Tuesday, Farage said the public should respond to Nowak’s killing with “pure cold rage.” During an interview with Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch on Tuesday’s episode of BBC Two’s Newsnight, Chorley said Farage had used the phrase “white cold rage” — a shift that Reform argued implied a racial element to Farage’s remarks and changed their meaning.
Chorley gave the wrong quote on camera three times during the interview.
Writing on X on Wednesday, Chorley said: “I owe Nigel Farage an apology. During last night’s Newsnight, we covered the murder of Henry Nowak and the political reaction to the case, including discussing Nigel Farage’s comments about ‘pure, cold rage’. However I referred to ‘white cold rage’. This was a mistake on my part, a misremembering of the quote. It didn’t change the content of the interview but I should have got the quote right. I apologise to Nigel Farage for this.”
The BBC also apologised directly to Farage and published an apology stating he had been quoted “mistakenly.” The episode has been removed from BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, and an apology will be broadcast on Wednesday’s edition of Newsnight.
Farage said on X that his legal team had “written to the BBC demanding a full on-air apology and investigation into the defamatory comments made about me on Newsnight,” adding: “Enough is enough.” He posted a link to a Daily Mail story that reproduced elements of Reform’s letter to the BBC.
In the letter, Reform said Chorley’s error “converts a criticism of discriminatory conduct by the authorities into an apparent appeal to race” and “suggests that Mr Farage, far from condemning racialised treatment, was himself invoking race as a basis for public anger.”
Nowak was killed in Southampton in December 2024. His killer, Vickrum Digwa, was jailed for life with a minimum 21-year term after lying to police at the scene of the stabbing, claiming he had himself been the victim of a racist attack. Bodycam footage released by police earlier this week showed officers expressing doubt when Nowak told them he had been stabbed. MSI previously reported that the footage fueled public claims of unequal policing.
The police handling of the murder has led to widespread public outcry. Hampshire Police said 11 officers and a police dog were injured during protests in Southampton on Tuesday night.
Chorley joined the BBC from Times Radio in 2024 to present a weekday afternoon show on BBC Radio 5 Live and also joined Newsnight as a presenter last year.