QUESTION Time has come under fire for featuring a GB News presenter before the programme has even aired.

The BBC show announced Michelle Dewberry will be in the line-up for tonight's episode along with Tory MP Robert Buckland, the SNP's Kate Forbes, Labour MP Lisa Nandy and journalist Paul Mason.

GB News, which is due to launch later this year, is chaired by former BBC journalist Andrew Neil and will target Conservative-leaning audiences.

The National:

Dewberry, who won The Apprentice in 2006, ran for election in Hull as an independent and for the Brexit Party. She will appear on GB News five times a week.

Dewberry's Question Time appearance sparked backlash on social media.

Paul Foulkes-Arellano questioned why Dewberry was invited over someone from the Green party, saying: "Can you explain why guest from @GBNEWS is invited @bbcquestiontime - but no-one from the UK's 3rd largest political party (from which no representative has been invited since 2019) Why is @bbc shunning @TheGreenParty? Is that a @CCHQPress directive so you keep TV licence?"

Cristina Velasco agreed, saying: "@bbcquestiontime continues ig noring@TheGreenParty. I think people would like to see one of our politicians because our party is getting stronger every day. You can see it in the #LocalElections2021, especially in cities like London,Bristol and Brighton."

Others questioned why someone from GB News is on the show as it hasn't launched yet.

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The GB News team includes Dewberry, Neil Oliver, former Guido Fawkes and Telegraph writer Tom Harwood, former ITV news presenter Alastair Stewart, and former Sky News presenter Colin Brazier.

Neil will present a nightly news programme on the channel containing “Wokewatch” and “Mediawatch” segments, but insisted GB News will conform to Ofcom rules on impartiality.

Critics have said the channel will aim to capitalise on the “culture wars” in the UK, offering comparisons to Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News in the US.

Figures at GB News, including Neil, have rejected the comparison. They say the channel will be aimed at the “vast number of British people who feel underserved and unheard” by the existing media in the UK.