Corbyn threatens one of the greatest Western freedoms: the free press

Jeremy Corbyn’s hard-left, populist politics continue to destroy the Labour party and undermine British values. The Labour leader is known for denouncing the West in favour of authoritarian regimes, offering overt support to Maduro in Venezuela, and Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran in the Middle East, and being soft on Russian aggression in his own country. Rightly, his take on international affairs has garnered him significant criticism. Closer to home, though, his recent attacks on press freedom are an equally disturbing manifestation of his extremist ideology.

At the Labour party conference last month, Corbyn launched a vicious and dangerous public attack on the free press. He asserted that the press in this country operates to smear “the powerless” and avoids taking on “the powerful”. His attack suggested that the media is controlled by a biased, self-interested few who promote their own agenda and prevent the press from truly being free.

Corbyn frequently makes the conspiratorial claim that there are powerful enemies of “the people” in the United Kingdom who are oppressing the public by perpetuating elitism. In a recent tweet about private water companies, for example, he attacked them for working in the interests of “private profit” instead of “people”. His taunts fit his sinister narrative that Western freedoms are deficient because they are inherently tainted by capitalist interests.

But it is his statist proposals to counter the so-called “media barons” which throw his disdain for individual liberties into particularly sharp relief. In August, Corbyn proposed creating a “public interest media fund”, financed through new taxes on tech companies, to pay for so-called “quality journalism” run by the state. He also wants to force editors to be subject to election by journalists and has proposed forcing the BBC to disclose the social class of its writers. His ridiculous plans even extend to social media. He has recently voiced support for a state-run rival for Facebook, saying it would be better at protecting privacy.

Unfortunately, this sort of rhetoric seems to resonate with his devout fans, who view the antisemitism crisis as a fabrication by right-wing media outlets for Tory political gain. This view may even be shared beyond just the hard-left. A worrying survey conducted by YouGov in 2016 revealed that a plurality of Brits believe that the press is deliberately biased against Corbyn.

The reality is that Jeremy Corbyn is in no position to comment on bias in the press. If he is so concerned about press freedom and objectivity, then why did he accept the £20,000 for five appearances on Iranian Press TV between 2009 and 2012? His high-profile appearances legitimised the flagrant abuse of human rights perpetrated by the state-owned Iranian channel. Corbyn is outrageously hypocritical in accepting payment from such an outlet and then denouncing the role of financial gain in the media.

But of course, Corbyn has no qualms about distorting reality to suit his socialist agenda. In his speech at the party conference, Corbyn equated British media to the media in authoritarian countries, where the press is under significant government control or restriction. He said: “journalists from Turkey to Myanmar and Columbia are being imprisoned, harassed and sometimes killed, by authoritarian governments…but here, the free press has far too often meant the freedom to spread lies and half-truths.” It is absurd to claim that press freedom in a country such as Turkey, which has imprisoned 535 journalists since 2002, is in any way comparable to press freedom in Britain. And the idea that Corbyn’s proposals for greater regulation of the media will in any way improve press freedom in Britain is nothing less than farcical.

Corbyn’s deep resentment of the West does not start and end with foreign affairs. If one of Corbyn’s chief political ambitions is to realign British foreign policy to favour dictators and communists, another is to make Britain emulate these countries at home. Press freedom is a vital aspect of any liberal democracy, and for it to be maintained, government involvement must be kept in check.

As a potential prime minister with vast grassroots support, we should all be deeply concerned about Corbyn’s attitude to the British press.