This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

BBC viewers watching the defection of seven MPs from the Labour party on Monday morning overheard a stark warning from an unknown voice: “We are actually fucked.”

The commentary was inadvertently broadcast to the nation on the BBC Two and BBC News channels, giving the unnamed commentator’s views on the decision of Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger and other MPs to leave Jeremy Corbyn’s party and sit in parliament as an independent group.

“Between this and Brexit we are actually fucked,” said the man in a live broadcast. “It’s going to be so divided … The Conservatives are going to win.”

During Umunna’s speech, a voice could be heard saying: “It’s mad, it’s mad” as the Streatham MP urged potential supporters to visit the Independent Group’s website and sign up as members.

A BBC spokesperson said it was investigating the incident but they were confident it was not an employee who had made the comments.

“Due to an error, we inadvertently broadcast some background comments from another microphone during our coverage of the press conference this morning. We apologised on air once we realised our mistake.”

Hot mic gaffes, when an individual does not realise they are live on air, have a long history in politics, most notoriously when the former prime minister Gordon Brown was caught calling Rochdale voter Gillian Duffy a “bigoted woman” during the 2010 general election.

The former Labour MPs said on Monday they were leaving the party due to concerns over its direction under Jeremy Corbyn, citing concerns over the party’s stance on Brexit, antisemitism, and the party’s internal culture.

The new group, which is not a registered political party, also suffered its own technical malfunctions following the launch. Potential supporters and donors were directed to its website, which promptly collapsed due to the large numbers of people attempting to access it.