We are delighted that one of the world’s leading actors, Sir Mark Rylance, has endorsed our campaign to end the billionaire media capture of our democracy.
Sir Mark said:
“Let’s break the grip of the climate-destroying billionaire-owned media and dark-money think-tanks on our democracy. Please sign and share the parliamentary petition: MediaSovereignty.org/petition. An independent, free press is vital to tackling our climate, poverty, democratic and nature crises.”
Sir Mark was the MC of a major Extinction Rebellion protest outside the Tufton Street HQ of so many of the billionaire-funded dark-money think-tanks in 2019. As well as freeing our media from billionaire capture, the Media Sovereignty Act bans dark-money think-tanks, forcing them to declare their donations in real time.
Sir Mark Rylance
- Named by Time magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people.
- Winner of an Academy Award, three BAFTAs, two Olivier Awards and three Tony Awards.
- Made a knight by Queen Elizabeth II in 2017.
- The first artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe in London.
- A patron of the London International Festival of Theatre; of the London-based charity Peace Direct, which supports peace-builders in areas of conflict; and of the Stop the War Coalition.
A leading climate scientist backs the campaign too
Sir Mark’s endorsement comes days after Professor Richard Betts, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, endorsed our campaign to end billionaire media capture of democracy, both in Britain and internationally.
Professor Betts holds the Chair in Climate Impacts at the University of Exeter and is Head of Climate Impacts Research at the Met Office Hadley Centre. He is the UK science co-lead in the AmazonFACE programme, was an expert adviser to the Climate Change Committee for the fourth UK Climate Change Risk Assessment, and was Director of the Technical Report for the third.
Most importantly, he is one of the most influential and distinguished climate scientists in the world through his role as a lead author on numerous Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports. He was a lead author on the Fourth Assessment Report in Working Group 1, leading the assessment of the influence of land cover change on climate; a lead author in Working Group 2 of the Fifth Assessment Report, responsible for assessing the impacts of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems; and a lead author on the Working Group 2 chapter on Water in the Sixth Assessment.
The list keeps growing
Sir Mark and Professor Betts join a growing list of senior figures backing the campaign to end the capture of our democracy by the foreign-owned billionaire media:
- Peter Oborne, former chief political commentator, The Telegraph
- Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party of England and Wales
- Clive Lewis MP
- Jonathan Porritt, former director of Friends of the Earth
- Professor Bill McGuire, Professor Emeritus of Climate Hazards, UCL
- Sir David King, former Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK government and head of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group
- Professor Richard Betts, lead author on IPCC reports
- Sir Mark Rylance
The petition closes this Friday
Not one of these endorsements has been reported by a billionaire-owned title. They have imposed a total blackout on a campaign to end them. That is precisely why every share matters now.
The petition closes at the end of Friday 18 September. Every name on it is a name we can put in front of Parliament, trade unions, party conferences and NGOs in the grassroots phase of this campaign that begins the moment the petition closes.
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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