The billionaire-owned media ignored a deeply chilling aspect of the Government’s approval of the takeover of The Telegraph by the German media group Axel Springer.
Axel Springer, which also owns Politico, Bild and Die Welt, requires its journalists to sign up to five corporate principles it calls the “Essentials”.
The second of them commits them to supporting “the right of existence of the State of Israel and to oppose all forms of antisemitism”. The company’s chief executive has told Telegraph staff they will operate within those Essentials.
You can read them on the company’s own website: https://www.axelspringer.com/en/what-defines-us
Set aside, for a moment, what you think about the content of that particular principle. Ask the constitutional question instead.
Should the owner of a British national newspaper — any owner, from any country, of any political persuasion — be able to impose a set of political commitments on British journalists as a condition of employment?
That is the question our media regulators never asked, our Culture Secretary never answered, and our national press never put on a front page.
The Government knew, and approved it anyway
The Culture Secretary gave the formal go-ahead in April, declaring herself “not minded to intervene” on either public interest or foreign state influence grounds.
That means 82% of UK daily newspapers are now controlled by three foreign-based billionaire owners.
Why The Telegraph matters
The Telegraph has become a propaganda tool for the far right, having been sold by a British billionaire family to US and Middle East investors, and now to a German media group.
It has enormous political impact on British politics, in many ways helping dictate the direction of Britain’s right-wing parties, and through them our democracy.
Over the last five years of billionaire capture, The Telegraph has poured out 24/7 propaganda supporting:
- the rise of the far-right Reform Party
- the destruction of the One Nation Conservative Party
- the demonisation of climate protection
- the constant claim that peaceful marches against the killing in Gaza are “hate marches”
Along with the rest of Britain’s billionaire-owned media, it poses an existential threat to British liberal democracy, to the freedom to protest, and to the protection of the stable climate on which Britain’s food supply and economy depend.
This is exactly what our first measure ends
The first measure of the Media Sovereignty Act bans foreign and offshore ownership of UK national media. Had it been law, this takeover could not have happened.
We do not allow people who are not British or domiciled in Britain to vote here. We do not allow them to make political donations here. Yet we allow our most powerful political force to be owned by people who do not live here, vote here or pay their personal taxes here.
Our petition closes on Friday 18 September.
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Please sign and share our petition to ban foreign media ownership: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/760061
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