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Byline Times’ chief reporter has been blocked from attending the Conservative Party conference, just weeks after leader Kemi Badenoch called Reform’s decision to bar several journalists from their own conference “authoritarian” and an attack on the “free press”.
Josiah Mortimer was told by a party official on Tuesday (29 September): “I regret to inform you that approval has not been granted by the Conservative Party, and as such, your application has been unsuccessful.” The email gave no specific reasons. Mortimer has reported on dozens of political conferences and the ban comes within days of the event starting this Sunday.
The decision was condemned by the National Union of Journalists and Index on Censorship as an attack on press freedom.
It comes after the Conservative leader hit out at Nigel Farage’s party earlier this month for rejecting several reporters who had investigated Reform UK from their annual gathering.
Badenoch said at the time: “I think you could…[see] what kind of government they would be – authoritarian and using state power actually to pursue opponents is what they’ve effectively been threatening.
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“We believe in free speech. We believe in a free press. And yes, of course, that might be painful for us as politicians, but public scrutiny is part of the gig. If Nigel Farage can’t handle difficult questions about his dodgy £5m then he shouldn’t be a politician,” she said.
However, the remarks rang hollow even then, coming after her party blocked this outlet’s political editor Adam Bienkov, and the late parliamentary correspondent David Hencke, from attending in 2025. Hencke had attended the Conservative conference for decades for outlets including Byline Times and the Guardian. The Conservatives have not responded to Bienkov’s application to attend this year’s event.
Then and now, the party gave no explanation for the ban, but a Conservative official said last September that the decision had been taken by “our media team”.
The apparent blacklisting comes despite Byline Times having previously been approved to cover Conservative conference under the leadership of Badenoch’s predecessors Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, as we reported last time.
Conservative conference is in Birmingham, running from Sunday 4 October to Wednesday 7 October.
In the US, President Trump’s move to strip three outlets of their White House access (CNN, MS Now and Politico) led to US television networks suspending their pooled coverage of Trump, in a coordinated show of solidarity that included even Fox News.
Such walkouts are largely unheard of in the UK, meaning political parties may calculate that they can afford to be picky about which outlets attend their events.

EXCLUSIVE
The ban on covering the party’s annual gathering came despite Badenoch’s repeated commitment to “fight” for free speech and a free press
Adam Bienkov
Laura Davison, general secretary of Mortimer’s union the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), said: “Further reports of political parties refusing journalists access to their conferences raise serious questions about the state of press freedom in the UK.
“The Conservative Party appears to have rejected media passes to journalists from Byline Times without explanation. This follows the banning of journalists at both the Labour and Reform UK party conferences, and of Byline Times journalists at the Conservative Party conference last year.”
The NUJ leader says political parties should not “pick and choose” which journalists and publications are able to question and s…