Donald Trump uses the term ‘fake news’ to describe anything he doesn’t agree with, says Tory MP

DONALD Trump uses the term 'fake news' to describe anything he doesn't agree with, an influential Tory MP has said.

Damian Collins, who is head of the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee, said using the phrase was "dangerous".

The Tory MP, speaking to students at the Press Association on Wednesday, said that we have to "fight the term 'fake news'."

He said: "What Donald Trump is doing, and I think it's a pernicious thing that he's doing, is to try and interpret the term fake news as being anything that he doesn't like or agree with."

His comments come just weeks after the committee decided to launch an inquiry into the term.

Mr Trump has coined the phrase to hit out against news organisations including CNN and BuzzFeed, which he accused of making up sources and stories about him.

Mr Collins warned against the "fake news industry" in the United States which centred on untrue crime stories.

And he added that putting real 'fake news' organisations into the same box as reputable news organisations was dangerous.

"So to use this term generally to say 'the New York Times is running a story I don't like, therefore the New York Times is fake news', that is a very dangerous thing to do," he said.

He added: "If we end up in a position like that, we end up in a position where the real perpetrators of fake news can continue spreading lies, unchallenged."

Last week the US President's team hit back at what he called "fake news" media outlets by banning places such as CNN and the BBC from the White House press briefings.

Reporters for CNN, BBC, The New York Times, Politico, The Los Angeles Times and BuzzFeed were not allowed into the session in the office of press secretary Sean Spicer.

He did not say why those particular news organisations were excluded, a decision which drew strong protests.

At the beginning of the year Mr Trump said news published by BuzzFeed which included compromising material on him, was untrue.

He tweeted: “FAKE NEWS — A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!”

But in recent weeks, MPs in the UK have been using the phrase.

Last weekend Amber Rudd said claims that the UK had stopped helping lone refugee children from Europe were "fake news".

MPs are launching an inquiry over fears people are being fed propaganda and lies from non-traditional news sources.

Mr Collins has said the trend was “a threat to democracy and undermines confidence in the media in general”.

It comes after suggestions voters in the 2016 US Presidential elections may have been affected by “possibly unprecedented” amounts of fake news.