THE MEDIA SOVEREIGNTY ACT 2026
Our first draft released today!
With some colleagues involved in media reform and climate media campaigns, we have drafted a Parliamentary Act that would reclaim, protect and enhance Britain’s captured media sovereignty.
A media Prexit !
After 33 years involved in environmental and mainstream politics, it is my conclusion that the greatest political catastrophe in Britain is the capture of our national media by the billionaire elite, whether that be social, broadcast or printed media.
Brexit, destruction of nature, rise of Reform, surging xenophobia, failure to fund the NHS, destruction of the political consensus to act on the climate crisis, failure to eliminate homelessness and child poverty, slashing of aid to the global south, government support for genocide in Palestine, cost of housing forcing many into poverty, soaring prison population, lethal war on drugs , the criminalisation of protest, etc etc are all led by the siren voices of our billionaire captured media.
The unaccountable, unearned political power waged by them trumps the voices of the people, again and again.
It is time to end it once and for all.
Let me be clear.
A nation is NOT sovereign if its media has been captured by a tiny foreign illiberal global billionaire elite.
The people are not sovereign if their media has been captured by a tiny wealthy elite.
The people are not sovereign if all sections of society do not have a stake in the ownership of their media.
The people are not sovereign if all the profits from its news media consumption are sucked up by a tiny offshore media billionaire oligarchy.
The people are not sovereign if its media is flooded with dark money funded propaganda from non-transparent so called “think tanks”.
Britain needs to take back sovereignty from the billionaire media oligarchy.
The Media Sovereignty Act will do this.
What do you think? Willing to RT to spread the word?
First draft text below (1st version without notes, 2nd version with notes.)
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THE MEDIA SOVEREIGNTY ACT 2026 (TEXT)
INTRODUCTION
A sovereign media is essential for a free people and a fair thriving democracy in Britain. True sovereignty includes media freedom from subjugation by foreign interests and excessive concentration of ownership by any class or group of individuals. And genuine sovereignty of the people, requires a genuine stake for all sections of society in the ownership of the nations of the United Kingdom’s media.
This Media Sovereignty Act establishes the regulations and systems by which the United Kingdom reclaims, protects and enhances its media sovereignty for its nations and its peoples.
SECTION 1: To ensure that the UK reclaims and retains sovereignty for its people over the UK’s Fourth Estate by ensuring freedom from foreign media ownership:
1.1 Non-UK domiciled individuals or entities shall not be allowed to directly or indirectly own or hold any shares in any UK national media organisations or large regional media groups.
SECTION 2:
To ensure that the UK public regains sovereignty of the UK’s Fourth Estate, it must be free from the undemocratic concentration of media ownership:
2.1 No individual, family or single organisation shall be allowed to own more than one national newspaper.
2.2 No individual or single organisation shall be allowed to own more than one national commercial TV corporation.
2.3 No individual or single organisation can own more than 20% of any UK major national newspaper or media organisation.
2.4 No individual or single organisation shall exercise a controlling share in any UK major national newspaper or media organisation.
2.5 Ofcom shall be charged with protecting the nation from the over-concentration of market share by any single commercial television corporation that provides coverage of news and current affairs.
SECTION 3:
To ensure true democratic sovereignty, the UK’s Fourth Estate must enable all sections of society to be heard and sovereignty reclaimed from the domination of the international tech corporations:
3.1 A levy shall be applied to the UK turnover of the large international social media corporations operating in the UK.
3.2 The levy shall be called the Media Sovereignty Levy.
3.3 The proceeds of the levy shall be invested in supporting:
3.3.1 The diversification of ownership of the UK’s independent media
3.3.2 The provision of local news.
3.4 The proceeds of this tax shall be disbursed proportionately by a trust in each of the UK nations, with a remit to ensure that all sections of society have a voice in our media, with particular emphasis on ensuring lower-income and minority groups have a fair proportionate share.
3.5 The trust’s remit shall be required to encourage co-operative and employee media ownership models in its grant allocations.
3.6 Political trustees shall be appointed by consensus by the relevant parliamentary committee (e.g. the UK’s Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee), with due regard to the proportionate vote of major parties in the previous general or national election.
3.7 The civil society trustees shall be appointed through consensus by the political trustees following consultation with the independent and commercial media sectors and representatives of civil society.
SECTION 4:
To protect the sovereignty of the UK’s Fourth Estate, it must be regulated fairly and independently from state interference, and victims of any press abuse must have recourse to fair arbitration:
4.1 All UK media organisations are required by law to be statutorily under the jurisdiction of the Impress Press regulator.
SECTION 5:
To ensure sovereignty of the UK’s media, it must be kept free from corruption by non-transparently funded think-tanks:
5.1 An official public register of public policy organisations (think-tanks) shall be established.
5.2 To qualify for registration, such organisations shall maintain a live publicly accessible record of their donors.
5.3 Failure to maintain this donor record shall result in immediate suspension from the register.
5.4 National media organisations, whether commercial or publicly owned, including the BBC, shall not platform any spokesperson, policy report or any other output of a public policy organisation (think-tank), whether based in the UK or abroad, that does not declare its donors.
5.5 The oversight of provision 5.4 shall be provided by the media regulator, Impress.
APPENDIX – DEFINITIONS
The Fourth Estate: Is the term used to describe the media and the influential political role the media plays in a nation’s governance.
Think-tank: A think tank, or public policy institute, is an organisation that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture..
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Version with notes on each section:
The Media Sovereignty Act 2026
Introduction
A sovereign media is essential for a free people and a fair thriving democracy in Britain. True sovereignty includes media freedom from subjugation by foreign interests and excessive concentration of ownership by any class or group of individuals. And genuine sovereignty of the people, requires a genuine stake for all sections of society in the ownership of the nations of the United Kingdom’s media.
This Media Sovereignty Act establishes the regulations and systems by which the United Kingdom reclaims, protects and enhances its media sovereignty for its nations and its peoples.
Section 1: To ensure that the UK reclaims and retains sovereignty for its people over the UK’s Fourth Estate by ensuring freedom from foreign media ownership:
1.1 Non-UK domiciled individuals or entities shall not be allowed to directly or indirectly own or hold any shares in any UK national media organisations or large regional media groups.
Notes:
It is crucial if the UK is to regain political sovereignty that it regains ownership over the most important source of political power in the nation – the corporate media.
The current domination of Britain’s printed media and, through it, of Britain’s political agenda by a small number of non-UK domiciled entities & individuals has deeply damaged our democracy, bringing us to the edge of corporate authoritarianism.
A nation does not have sovereignty or a free democracy if the source of information and the largest source of political power is owned by foreign entities.
Section 2: To ensure that the UK public regains sovereignty of the UK’s Fourth Estate, it must be free from the undemocratic concentration of media ownership:
2.1 No individual, family or single organisation shall be allowed to own more than one national newspaper.
2.2 No individual or single organisation shall be allowed to own more than one national commercial TV corporation.
2.3 No individual or single organisation can own more than 20% of any UK major national newspaper or media organisation.
2.4 No individual or single organisation shall exercise a controlling share in any UK major national newspaper or media organisation.
2.5 Ofcom shall be charged with protecting the nation from the over-concentration of market share by any single commercial television corporation that provides coverage of news and current affairs.
Notes:
In a sovereign nation, it is essential for a thriving, healthy democracy that no one individual, family or organisation gain disproportionate political power through a disproportionate ownership of Britain’s corporate media.
Section 3: To ensure true democratic sovereignty, the UK’s Fourth Estate must enable all sections of society to be heard and sovereignty reclaimed from the domination of the international tech corporations:
3.1 A levy shall be applied to the UK turnover of the large international social media corporations operating in the UK.
3.2 The levy shall be called the Media Sovereignty Levy.
3.3 The proceeds of the levy shall be invested in supporting:
3.3.1 The diversification of ownership of the UK’s independent media
3.3.2 The provision of local news.
3.4 The proceeds of this tax shall be disbursed proportionately by a trust in each of the UK nations, with a remit to ensure that all sections of society have a voice in our media, with particular emphasis on ensuring lower-income and minority groups have a fair proportionate share.
3.5 The trust’s remit shall be required to encourage co-operative and employee media ownership models in its grant allocations.
3.6 Political trustees shall be appointed by consensus by the relevant parliamentary committee (e.g. the UK’s Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee), with due regard to the proportionate vote of major parties in the previous general or national election.
3.7 The civil society trustees shall be appointed through consensus by the political trustees following consultation with the independent and commercial media sectors and representatives of civil society.
Notes:
For the people to be sovereign in a liberal democracy, it is essential that voices from across all income sectors are heard in our corporate media.
The key to this is the introduction of a funding mechanism that supports the full range of voices having a stake in the ownership of our media and that supports local and independent media. This would counteract the disproportionate political power exercised by the billionaire class, by their ability to use their wealth to purchase and concentrate media ownership and the undemocratic political power that accrues from it.
Australia has introduced legislation requiring large social media corporations to contribute to the costs of Australian news production.
As UK media advertising migrated from traditional national media to international social media platforms, funding for original news gathering has suffered.
For example, Meta alone made over £6billion in UK turnover in 2024.
Section 4: To protect the sovereignty of the UK’s Fourth Estate, it must be regulated fairly and independently from state interference, and victims of any press abuse must have recourse to fair arbitration:
4.1 All UK media organisations are required by law to be statutorily under the jurisdiction of the Impress Press regulator.
Notes:
The billionaire-owned media, through their undemocratic concentration of political power, have successfully sabotaged the recommendations of the Leveson Inquiry for the introduction of a fair statutory media regulator that addresses any damaging abuses of power by the corporate media, whilst protecting the freedom of the press from state censorship or control.
It is time that corporate media were legally required to join Impress.
Section 5: To ensure sovereignty of the UK’s media, it must be kept free from corruption by non-transparently funded think-tanks:
5.1 An official public register of public policy organisations (think-tanks) shall be established.
5.2 To qualify for registration, such organisations shall maintain a live publicly accessible record of their donors.
5.3 Failure to maintain this donor record shall result in immediate suspension from the register.
5.4 National media organisations, whether commercial or publicly owned, including the BBC, shall not platform any spokesperson, policy report or any other output of a public policy organisation (think-tank), whether based in the UK or abroad, that does not declare its donors.
5.5 The oversight of provision 5.4 shall be provided by the media regulator, Impress.
Notes:
Britain’s sovereignty has been seriously undermined in recent decades by the rise of non-transparently (dark-money) funded “think-tanks”.
As a poorly disguised front for an international fossil-fuelled, anti-democratic billionaire elite, they have wielded enormous invisible, unaccountable political power in pressuring governments to slow down climate protection, privatise public monopolies, remove nature and environmental pollution protections and restrict human rights to protest.
This dark-money political power is mainly exercised through their access to the corporate, state media ecosystems and parliament.
The restoration of media sovereignty therefore requires that the British public is secure in the knowledge that any think-tank reports or spokespersons that they encounter in British media are transparently funded, so that they know who is working to change their political views.
Appendix – Definition
The Fourth Estate: Is the term used to describe the media and the influential political role the media plays in a nation’s governance.
Think-tank: A think tank, or public policy institute, is an organisation that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture..
Donnachadh McCarthy
