Gary Lineker stands by his immigration policy remarks

Gary Lineker has said that he stands by his tweets criticising the government’s asylum policy and is not worried about facing suspension from his £1.35m-a-year job at the BBC.

Pressure continues to mount on Lineker, with the culture secretary and two former BBC directors adding to the criticism of the Match of the Day presenter’s comments on social media, in which he likened the language used to set out the government’s immigration plans to “that used by Germany in the 30s”.

However, support for Lineker has come from media figures including Piers Morgan and the Sky News commentator Adam Boulton.

In a tweet on Thursday, Lineker suggested he was not facing any sanction or suspension. “Happy that this ridiculously out of proportion story seems to be abating and very much looking forward to presenting [Match of the Day] on Saturday. Thanks again for all your incredible support. It’s been overwhelming,” he tweeted.

Lineker, who is facing a “frank conversation” from BBC bosses about the corporation’s policies regarding impartiality on social media, responded with a “no” when asked by reporters on Thursday if whether he feared being suspended.

Speaking outside his home on Thursday morning, he said “of course” after being asked whether he stood by what he said in his tweets.

He was then asked whether he feared being suspended. Lineker told reporters he did not.

A BBC insider said that while senior managers have had conversations with Lineker the matter is yet to be resolved and no course of action has yet been determined following the tweets.

The home secretary Suella Braverman, who has herself been previously criticised by a Holocaust survivor for the language used about refugees, said the comments “diminishes the unspeakable tragedy” of the Holocaust, calling the comparison “lazy and unhelpful”.

“I think it is, from a personal point of view, to hear that characterisation is offensive because – as you said – my husband is Jewish, my children are therefore directly descendant from people who were murdered in gas chambers during the Holocaust,” she told the BBC’s Political Thinking podcast.

“To kind of throw out those kind of flippant analogies diminishes the unspeakable tragedy that millions of people went through and I don’t think anything that is happening in the UK today can come close to what happened in the Holocaust.”

Speaking in the Commons earlier on Thursday, the culture secretary, Lucy Frazer, said it was important for the BBC to maintain impartiality if it was to retain the trust of the public who paid the licence fee.

She added: “As somebody whose grandmother escaped Nazi Germany in the 1930s, I think it’s really disappointing and inappropriate to compare government policy on immigration to events in Germany in the 1930s.

“The BBC is operationally independent and I’m pleased the BBC will be speaking to Gary Lineker to remind him of his responsibilities in relation to social media.”

Last year he was named as the BBC’s top earning on-air talent for the fifth consecutive year, and was paid between £1,350,000 and £1,354,999 in 2021/2022 for Match of the Day and Sports Personality of the Year.

While Lineker has received support from some quarters – Morgan said that despite his comments being “clearly incendiary” they should not bother the corporation as he is not a news reporter – former BBC bosses have also criticised his actions.

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Richard Ayre, the former BBC controller of editorial policy, said on Thursday that it was “unacceptable” for a BBC employee to “compare Suella Braverman to the Third Reich” and that Lineker had to decide if he wants to remain employed at the corporation or “become a social media influencer”.

On Thursday, Roger Mosey, the former head of BBC television news and director of sport, said that while he sympathised with Lineker’s views and didn’t support calls for him to be sacked his lack of impartiality is a legitimate concern for the corporation.

“What if he was tweeting ‘Brexit is working, Suella Braverman is right, refugees should go back to Calais’?,” said Mosey, speaking to Times Radio. “[Impartiality] can be tough sometimes, but it’s the best policy in difficult circumstances for the BBC … If you receive £1.4m from the BBC, you need to abide by the BBC’s rules.”

Despite the criticism Lineker has remained steadfastly unbowed over his social media salvo, backing up his original tweet with a subsequent post thanking those supporting him and vowing not to be silenced.

“I’ll continue to try and speak up for those poor souls that have no choice,” he tweeted.

Last year, Davie told a committee of MPs that he had talked to Lineker about the BBC’s editorial social media guidelines but admitted cracking down on his politicised tweeting was a “work in progress”.

Davie implemented strict new social media policies for news staff when he took on the role of director general at the end of 2020. Staff were told they needed to follow editorial guidelines and editorial oversight in the same way as when doing BBC content.

However, Lineker works for the BBC as a freelancer and is not responsible for news or political content so does not need to adhere to the same rules on impartiality.

A representative for Lineker declined to comment further.