THE government’s “blacklisting” of investigative journalism site Declassified UK was an "institutional reflex,” according to an independent review. 

Former Downing Street spokesman Tom Kelly, who carried out the government-commissioned review, found that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) labelled Declassified “a hostile website.”

A military officer on loan to the MoD press office suggested in July that the website “should be put on a list of organisations which the department would not engage with, or rarely engage with, because it was not considered a reputable source of news,” Mr Kelly found.