The exchange comes after Sir Keir Starmer told the Commons that RT was the Russian leader’s “personal propaganda tool” and he could see no reason why it should be allowed to continue broadcasting in the UK. “We must also do more to defeat Putin’s campaign of lies and disinformation,” he added.

The Prime Minister told MPs: “We live in a democracy and we live in a country that believes in free speech, and I think it’s important that we should leave it up to Ofcom rather than to politicians to decide which media organisations to ban. That’s what Russia does.”

‘Fake news’

Earlier on Wednesday Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, called RT a purveyor of “propaganda and fake news” and urged the regulator to step up its scrutiny.

The channel broadcasts news and current affairs with a pro-Kremlin stance on Freeview and Sky channels 113 and 511 respectively.

RT has faced accusations of peddling Kremlin-backed propaganda after expanding its English language service into the UK and America since launching in 2005.

The regulator has already fined the channel £200,000 for breaching impartiality rules for reports about the war in Syria and the Salisbury poisonings four years ago.

RT lost a challenge at the Court of Appeal in November to have the decision overturned.

Germany has already taken steps to clamp down on RT by banning the channel at the beginning of the month because it had not secured the required broadcasting licence.

RT reported that Moscow was preparing a series of countermeasures to the station being blocked in Germany, including stopping German firms advertising in Russia, or stripping German broadcasters DW Deutsch and DW-TV from the nation’s airwaves.

Ofcom has also taken tough action against state-backed broadcasters in recent years. It revoked the licence of China’s CGTN in February last year when it breached regulations for televising an alleged forced confession of UK citizen Peter Humphrey.

The Chinese state retaliated by banning BBC World News from broadcasting in the country over its reports on the treatment of the ethnic minority Uighurs.

Anna Belkina, the deputy editor-in-chief of Russia Today, said: “RT’s operational and editorial independence from all governments is legally protected and always has been.

“Ofcom recognizes this and has long-endorsed RT as a licence holder.

“Even in the face of undue political pressure it has continuously found RT to be in line with other UK broadcasters, without a single breach of broadcasting code to be found in the last 4 years – not something that can be said about many other channels in the country.

“Yet UK politicians are now openly and brazenly interfering in institutions they have long touted as supposedly independent and wholly free from political pressure, exposing their self-proclaimed commitment to such values as free speech and regulatory independence as nothing but a sham.”

Banning Kremlin-backed broadcaster puts BBC at risk

As Western leaders lined up to criticise Vladimir Putin’s decision to send tanks rolling into eastern Ukraine, Russia Today had already begun painting a contrasting picture of the crisis.

The Kremlin-backed broadcaster reported on Monday that celebrations had broken out in Donetsk, shortly after President Putin backed pro-Russian separatists claims over the region and neighbouring Luhansk. 

Accompanying an online news story headlined “Watch Donetsk and Lugansk celebrate” was shaky camera footage showing fireworks lighting up the skies above empty streets.

Such stories peddled through a pro-Russian lens may have limited impact on the British public when the broadcaster has an average TV audience of just 2,000 viewers a day, according to the ratings compiler Barb.

Nevertheless politicians are piling the pressure on Ofcom, the media regulator, to rein in Putin’s misinformation weapon in a sign of strength against Russia’s decision to march deeper into Ukraine.

The calls put Boris Johnson in a difficult position. Suggestions that the UK could be working towards a ban of RT has already attracted a promise of retaliation from Moscow that is likely to target the BBC. 

More broadly, the Prime Minister risks jeopardising the UK’s reputation for openness and free speech if it mounts a campaign to banish RT without clear evidence of misconduct. 

When Sir Keir Starmer told the Commons that RT was the Russian leader’s “personal propaganda tool” and he could see no reason why it should be allowed to continue broadcasting in the UK, the Prime Minister responded: “We live in a democracy and we live in a country that believes in free speech, and I think it’s important that we should leave it up to Ofcom rather than to politicians to decide which media organisations to ban. That’s what Russia does.”

That does not mean RT’s British broadcasting history has not been without controversy. The channel was fined £200,000 in 2019 for breaching impartiality rules.