Having watched Andrew Marr interview Arron Banks on his BBC show on Sunday, I agree with those who thought the journalist’s approach was not the best way to probe him. Banks got his 30-second soundbite in first and, once again, the BBC was played. Something has gone very wrong with my profession in this country, as it has in the US.

The deference to Trump that so many journalists also display to Steve Bannon and his ilk rests on an idea that has to be contested: that there is truth and there are lies and that the job of a journalist is simply to reveal the lies and – hallelujah! – everything will change. This is patently not working. Trump supporters know he lies and they don’t care. They will counter this by saying the media lies about him.

Remainers keep banging on to leavers that they were lied to, that a slogan on a bus was a lie. Again, they believe the reciting of this fact will change minds. But no. Of course, people who have lived in Russia have warned us about this for a long time. It is possible to exist in alternative realities, to muddy the ground between truth and lies. It is possible to think two things at the same time. It is possible to know you are being lied to and not to mind that much, as it is par for the course.

To counter this, we have to hit back at the level of emotional truth; after all, this is what Facebook ads were said to be doing – appealing to people’s emotional understanding of the world. The BBC, in particular, has been completely unfit for purpose and the Ukippy right wing has run circles around it. The mantra of impartiality has permitted the amplification of untruths. We need to think again.