Andrew Neil and Piers Morgan criticise ‘virtue-signalling twerps’ Ikea for pulling ads from GB News

GB News’s Andrew Neil has criticised Ikea, after the furniture giant suspended advertisements on the channel.

A number of companies, including Koppaberg, Grolsch, Nivea and Open University, have suspended ads on the new news channel, claiming they were unaware that their campaigns would appear on GB News.

This comes amid campaigns from groups such as Stop Funding Hate, who are concerned about the political leanings of the channel.

Swedish company Ikea is the latest company to speak out, with a statement in response to people threatening to boycott them over advertising with GB News reading: ‘IKEA has not knowingly advertised on GB News. We have safeguards in place to prevent our advertising from appearing on platforms that are not in line with our humanistic values and vision to side with the many people.

‘We are in the process of investigating how this may have occurred to ensure it won’t happen again in future and have suspended paid display advertising in the meantime.’

Chairman of GB News Andrew Neil, who also hosts his own nightly programme, responded by sharing an article about Ikea France being fined £1million after the company spied on its employees from three years.

Neil, 72, tweeted: ‘IKEA has decided to boycott GB News because of our alleged values. Here are IKEA’s values — a French CEO who is a criminal with a two year suspended jail sentence for spying on staff.’

Ikea France’s former CEO Jean-Louis Baillot, who was boss between 1996 and 2002, was handed a suspended two-year prison sentence.

Prosecutors accused the furniture company of illicitly carrying out ‘mass surveillance’ in a practice dating back to the early 2000s.

Neil’s critics noted that the fine was aimed at Ikea France, not Ikea UK, which has pulled ads from GB News.

However, Piers Morgan – who was reported to have been having talks with GB News after quitting Good Morning Britain – was on Neil’s side.

The 56-year-old tweeted: ‘Oh shut up, you pathetic virtue-signalling twerps. I’m now boycotting IKEA.’

When somebody replied: ‘I thought you were against people boycotting brands who do things they don’t agree with? ‘cancel culture’ and all that nonsense, right? Or is it not ‘cancel culture’ when you do it?’, Morgan wrote back: ‘I think cancel culture needs to be cancelled, along with anyone that fuels cancel culture – be it IKEA or Chrissy Teigen. They shouldn’t mind – they love cancellations.’

Advertising sales for GB News are being handled by Sky Media and the brands speaking out said they were unaware their campaigns would appear on GB News in advance.

Delivery for ad campaigns run through Sky Media is spread across its portfolio of about 130 channels; most TV advertising is bought and targeted to certain agreed audiences, rather than specific channels.

A statement from alcohol brand Grolsch read: ‘Grolsch is a brand that prides itself on core values of inclusion and openness to all people, and we want to be clear that we do not associate ourselves with any platforms our outlets that go against these values.’

Cider brand Kopparberg added that they were a ‘drink for everyone’.

Establishing itself as an ‘anti-woke’ news channel to rival BBC and Sky, GB News journalists have been keen to stress that it will not be a British version of Fox News, instead adopting the US channel’s programme-based and anchor-led format, rather than a rolling news format.

Since its launch on Sunday, the channel has hosted debates on England footballers taking the knee and ‘woke culture’, while on last night’s show with Dan Wootton, Lady Colin Campbell was seen arguing about the definition of a paedophile while speaking about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The channel has also been plagued by technical issues, with many viewers complaining about the quality of sound.

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