UK parliament rejects press pass for news outlet citing story about Israel

The UK parliament has blocked a press pass for a media outlet with a history of critical reporting on Israel's influence on British politics.

Declassified UK said it was initially told its pass was rejected "due to limitations within the Parliamentary estate" but it later filed a freedom of information request that revealed its press pass was blocked due to its reporting.

According to emails obtained by the outlet, officials in the UK parliament, which oversees administrative operations at the UK's legislative body, cited "in-depth investigations… from a particular standpoint" when blocking the pass.

A story Declassified had published in June this year about a parliamentary official who had expressed pro-Israel views was cited in the conversations.

Staff at the UK parliament are expected to be politically impartial in their work, as is expected of civil servants in the country.

The media outlet also found that despite UK parliament's claim that the press pass was rejected due to "limitations", three other journalists had press passes issued after their rejection.

Leicester South MP Shockat Adam told Declassified that the decision to reject their press pass was an "outrageous abuse."

"The UK has a long history of fearless and frank investigative journalism and Declassified is part of that tradition," Adam said.

"The spurious reasons for refusing them a press pass revealed in their Freedom of Information request appears to reveal a sinister move to suppress investigative political journalism worthy of the Trump White House."

Others condemning the parliamentary authority's rejection of Declassified's application and subsequent misleading over the reason, include Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn and Ellie Chowns, the Green MP for North Herefordshire.

Chowns said: "Press freedom is fundamental to our democracy."

A UK parliament spokesperson said: "The House of Commons supports the work of a free and independent press – providing access and facilities to the Parliamentary Press Gallery. Demand far exceeds capacity here, hence numbers are required to be strictly controlled, whilst ensuring fair access across a range of outlets.

"Decisions around accreditation are applied consistently across all applications. They are not based on an outlet's editorial stance or coverage of any one issue, and any suggestion to the contrary is wholly untrue."

The spokesperson added: "The range of media outlets currently granted access - spanning the full spectrum of political opinion and including a wide variety of independent and critical journalism - clearly demonstrates that the accreditation process is impartial and rooted solely in operational considerations and editorial relevance to parliamentary proceedings."