This week, the Labour Party announced a bold new policy proposal that has shaken up the election race – publicly owned broadband internet, free to all. In the words of Jeremy Corbyn, the party’s leader, it is “a taster of the kind of fresh, transformational policies that will change your life.”
Under the plan, the government would purchase Openreach, the digital network operator that is a subsidiary of BT Group, and form a new publicly owned British Broadband company to extend high-speed internet access to every household, business, and institution in the country. As Mat Lawrence, Director of Common Wealth, revealed in the Guardian, given than just around 7% of premises in the UK currently have such access (compared to nearly 100% in countries like Japan and South Korea), expanding broadband access would have considerable economic, social, and environmental benefits. Moreover, making the service free would reduce household and commercial bills, putting more money back in the pockets of families and entrepreneurs.
As expected, corporate lobby groups and their political lackeys were less than thrilled at the announcement. For instance, Boris Johnson, in his usual histrionic manner, derided it as a “crazed communist scheme.” The BBC was happy to regurgitate the attack line of BT’s Managing Director, Neil McRae, who derided the proposals as “broadband communism”.
