TEHRAN -- In yet another crackdown on freedom of speech, the British parliament is considering revoking a security pass held by former Labour MP Chris Williamson over hosting a show broadcast on Iran’s Press TV.
According to the Daily Mail, parliamentary authorities are facing calls to rethink the granting of the pass to Williamson as the 66-year-old fronts a popular show on Press TV.
Williamson, an MP for Derby North between 2017 and 2019 and who served as a shadow minister under former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, enjoys privileged access to the British parliament by holding one of more than 300 passes doled out to former MPs.
The Mail said current MPs have expressed fears about a “mouthpiece” for what they claimed to be “hostile foreign governments,” and his having “unfettered access” to the parliamentary estate.
“The willingness of these parliamentarians to make utterly baseless accusations about me, while remaining silent about hundreds of MPs acting as lobbyists for the hostile regime in Tel Aviv, reveals their shameless hypocrisy,” Williamson told MailOnline.
The former MP has been a host of Press TV’s Palestine Declassified show since March 2022 after previously appearing as a guest on the English-language news channel.
The popular show sheds light on the British government’s veiled support for atrocities and aggression perpetrated by the Israeli occupying regime against Palestinians, as well as London’s back channel dealings with Tel Aviv.
“The parliamentary authorities should look to review whether it’s proper for someone like Chris Williamson to have unfettered access to the parliamentary estate,” Conservative backbencher Henry Smith told MailOnline.
Press TV, banned in Britain since 2013, was recently sanctioned by the European Union

as part of the bloc’s response to violent riots after the mid-September death of Mahsa Amini.
The satellite channel, which has earned a reputation as the “voice of the voiceless”, has faced many attacks from Western countries over the years.
On April 3, 2012, Munich-based media regulator BLM announced it was removing Press TV from the SES Astra satellite, as it purportedly did not have a license to broadcast in Europe.
In November 2012, the Hong Kong-based AsiaSat took Iranian channels off air in East Asia, and in October 2012 Eutelsat and Intelsat stopped broadcasting several Iranian satellite channels, though the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting managed to resume broadcasts after striking deals with smaller companies that are based in other countries.
In July 2013, Press TV was forced off the air in the UK after the media regulator Ofcom revoked its license for allegedly breaching the Communications Act.
In the same year, it was taken off air in North America after the U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).
Press TV was dropped from the Galaxy 19 satellite platform that allowed it to broadcast in the United States and Canada, without saying when it was dropped.