Andrew Neil brands GB News a ‘Ukip tribute band’ and says it was a ‘huge mistake’ joining

Neil resigned as chairman and lead presenter of the fledgling TV channel in September

Andrew Neil has described GB News as a “Ukip tribute band” in a scathing new interview.

The presenter was the face of the much-derided right-leaning news channel when it launched earlier this year, but left acrimoniously during in September.

Neil has now described the channel’s launch as a “shambles”, claiming that the broadcaster could “fall into irrelevance and obscurity” unless viewership numbers pick up.

During a recent appearance at Freeview’s Outside the Box event, the former BBC presenter said: “The big mistake I made – and it was a huge mistake, and it did cause pain and aggravation – was that I put my name and face on the tin and yet quickly discovered that I really had no say in what was going into that tin.

“What made it very stressful and very difficult was that in the public domain, understandably and quite rightly, it was Andrew Neil’s GB News, it was Andrew Neil’s channel, that was the brand of it. And yet it was doing things … that were not me,” he continued.

Neil said that it “became apparent” as the year progressed that “this was basically a Ukip tribute band”.

He also said that he was in “no rush” to return to broadcasting, but did not wish his stint on GB News to be the “full stop” of his career.

He also denied he planned on accepting a presenting role on Rupert Murdoch’s forthcoming Talk TV, which has hired Piers Morgan as lead host.