For years, at every climate march and protest, the chant “system change, not climate change” rings out.
But almost nobody ever chants which system needs changing, or what it needs changing to. Ask people and the answers depend entirely on their own political starting point.
After 34 years of climate and nature campaigning, I am absolutely convinced that the first system that has to change is the unaccountable, undemocratic system of billionaire media ownership.
Why this one comes first
I have been on both sides of this issue. I have been a politician, as deputy chair of the Liberal Democrat executive. I have been a journalist working for the billionaire-owned press, as climate columnist for The Independent.
And this is what I said when I was invited to speak on media ownership at the Media Democracy Festival, hosted by the Media Reform Coalition:
“The core issue for all of these problems with our society, with democracy and with climate, is the ownership of our media.
I believe that you cannot have a free and fair democracy if our media is owned by the 0.0001%. It leaves the 99.9% out. It is anti-democratic and it is causing a democratic crisis.
There is a fundamental flaw in liberal democracy. And that flaw is that we allow the ultra-rich to buy our media and, through that, to control us. It is a flaw that we have to deal with.”
The full eight-minute speech is on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6-7czznryI&t=327s
What we have watched happen
Again and again, opinion polls have shown that the public backs urgent action — on climate, on poverty, on housing, on water. Again and again, governments of every party have caved to the bullying of the billionaire media and failed to act.
And in recent years it has got far worse. The billionaire media replaced their 24/7 Brexit propaganda war with a 24/7 propaganda war on any climate action at all.
No other agreed system change can happen fast enough while the media billionaires control almost all of our microphones.
What it changes to
We need to switch to a media ownership system where ownership is spread across all sections of society. The working and middle classes deserve a far louder voice than the 0.0001%.
The Act’s first and second measures ban foreign and domestic billionaire ownership. Its third measure levies the UK turnover of the tech corporations siphoning billions out of British advertising revenue, and puts that money into independent, local and co-operatively owned media.
Once enacted, the Media Sovereignty Act would represent the greatest transfer of real political power from the billionaire elite to the people since women won the vote in 1918.
What do we want? System change, not climate change.
What system change do we want? Media ownership change.
Our petition closes at the end of today.
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Please sign and share our petition to ban foreign media ownership: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/760061
And help us cover Campaign costs by donating to our Crowdfunder: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/crowdfunder-for-polling-the-publics-view-on-billi