The Labour party is developing policies to break up the UK’s largest media companies, according to leader Jeremy Corbyn.
In an interview in Monday’s Morning Star, Corbyn said the party also wanted to promote co-operative ownership models for the media.
“We are developing a media policy which would be about breaking up single ownership of too many sources of information, so that we have a multiplicity of sources,” he said.
“And actually promoting co-operative ownership and access, including local TV and radio stations and newspapers like the Morning Star.”
The last Labour manifesto under Ed Miliband included a commitment to “protect media plurality” and update rules for a 21st century media environment. However, it stopped short of proposing caps on media ownership or threatening to break up any of the UK’s largest media businesses.
Corbyn’s comments to the leftwing newspaper are unlikely to win him any admirers in an already largely hostile press. In particular, his words are likely to be interpreted as a challenge to Rupert Murdoch’s News UK which with the Sun and the Times dominates the UK’s print newspaper market.
The Sun was forced earlier this week to print a correction trailed on its front page over a story that falsely claimed Corbyn was preparing to join the privy council to secure £6.2m in so called “short money” for Labour. In fact the funding is based on the number of MPs a party has, and has nothing to do with the leader of the opposition’s status.
Corbyn told the Star that he felt the press had covered his leadership and focus on a “new politics” unfairly.
He said: “I think the media’s attitude towards the Labour party and our campaign has been horrendous.
“It’s because we are doing a different form of politics, which is a mass movement of ordinary people for the first time getting involved in politics.”
