Radical liberalism has always been in the vanguard of the centuries long march from rule by aristocratic elites toward greater democracy. Whether that was the great Reform Acts of the 19th century or the Universal Suffrage Acts of the 20th century.
But the final transfer of real power to the people has yet to be completed. Because for as long as the billionaire class own our media, they retain enormous power and control over our body politic.
When invited to address the George Soros Foundation, as director of the Climate Media Coalition, I stated that there was a fundamental flaw in liberal democracy.
That flaw is that we allow billionaires the freedom to buy up and dominate our media. You simply cannot have a free and fair democracy if the Fourth Estate is captured by the 0.001 per cent.
Liberalism has always sought to improve on the fairness of our democratic structures. Hence our commitment to written constitutions, institutional checks and balances and proportional representation.
But with fascism knocking at the door, there is now an added urgency for liberalism to free media ownership from the hands of the tiny illiberal billionaire clique.
Almost every aspect of our media in the UK is dominated by these illiberal media billionaires.
Indeed, many politicians have been afraid to even discuss the issue, due to the fear of their propaganda power, which can destroy almost any political career instantly. Almost every prime minister of the last half-century has been backed by the US/Australian media billionaire Rupert Murdoch.
When a newly elected member of the Liberal Democrats' Federal Executive in the early 1990’s, I was frustrated that the party never campaigned on European issues in European elections. So, when the 1994 EU elections arose, I asked if we could do so.
Back came the response from that we could not as Murdoch would trash the party, if we did so. I said if the most pro-European party was afraid to campaign on European issues in European elections, then if there ever was a referendum, we had already lost.
Since Brexit, the media billionaires replaced their war on the EU with a 24/7 war on climate protection and the ECHR. They wiped out what was left of the One Nation Tories, after switching their backing to Reform about five years ago and bullied Badenoch to becoming a Reform 2.0 party.
Their endless attacks on climate action have destroyed the cross-party consensus on climate. And their endless propaganda for Reform, fuelled their polling surge and won their first seats in parliament, where the billionaire media now treats them as the Official Opposition, whilst ignoring the LibDems.
Our estimate of the monetary value of these non-declarable propaganda donations is well over £200m.
Thus, we now have not one but two major parties in parliament, representing up to 50 per cent of the population in some opinion polls, which are far-right. Up from a tiny 3 per cent just five years ago.
If they win a majority in the next parliament, everything the climate movement and liberals have worked for over decades would be under threat.
So how should liberals act to end this existential threat to liberal democracy?
We need to complete the Great Reform Acts and legislate for the transfer of power from the media billionaires to the general public by passing a Media Freedom (Sovereignty) Act.
The Media Sovereignty Campaign has drawn up a proposed act that would do five things:
- ban foreign media ownership;
- restrict anybody from owning more than 20% of a national media outlet and no corporation can own more than one national media outlet;
- fund independent and local media with a social media levy on the tech billionaires;
- require national media to join a complaints authority that is independent of government and media owners;
- require dark-money funded think-tanks to declare donations in real time.
The Act already has been endorsed by Peter Oborne, Zack Polanski, Clive Lewis MP, Jonathan Porritt, Prof. Bill McGuire, Sir David King, Prof. Richard Betts, Sir Mark Rylance, George Monbiot and Prof. Hugh Montgomery.
The Campaign is hopeful that the Green Party Conference in October will adopt all five measures in the Act.
Our hope is that the Act will then be passed by the Liberal Democrats' Spring Conference in light of the urgent threat the billionaire-media’s promotion of far-right parties poses to liberal democracy. We are looking for Lib Dem constituency parties to submit the Act to the conference committee for selection to be debated.
This Act will enable the greatest transfer of real political power from the billionaire ruling cabal to the people, since the adoption of women’s suffrage. Liberals should be at the forefront of another Great Reform Act.
Donnachadh McCarthy is a Director of the Climate Media Coalition, co-founder of the Media Sovereignty Campaign and a former climate columnist for The Independent. He is the author of The Prostitute State: How Britain’s Democracy Was Bought. He is a former Deputy Chair of the Liberal Democrats Federal Executive.
The Media Sovereignty Campaign can be contacted via its website, Bluesky or email.
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