Corbyn broadband plan shocks City
JEREMY Corbyn sent shockwaves through the City as he unveiled plans to nationalise the UK’s broadband network, providing free internet access for every home in the country.
Labour costed the scheme at £20 billion but BT – which would be partly taken back into public ownership – warned the true figure would be closer to £100 billion.
The telecoms giant saw its share price fall 4% on the news – although it later recovered, still wiping more than £200 million off the value of the company.
Boris Johnson said it was a “crazed communist scheme” as the Tories warned it would fall foul of European state aid rules if Labour succeeded in keeping Britain in the EU.
However Mr Corbyn insisted that by providing “gold standard” full-fibre broadband to the entire country, a Labour government would be putting Britain “at the cutting edge of social and economic change”.
“Fast and free broadband for all will fire up our economy, deliver a massive boost to productivity and bring half a million people back into the workforce,” he said in a campaign speech in Lancaster.
“It will help our environment and tackle the climate emergency by reducing the need to commute. And it will make our country fairer, more equal and more democratic.”
The announcement represented the most radical move so far by any of the parties in the General Election race.
The move would bring parts of BT into public ownership, including Openreach which runs the UK’s broadband network.
Labour said it would be paid for through the party’s Green Transformation fund and taxing corporations such as Amazon, Facebook and Google – bringing an monthly saving of £30.30 to the average person.
The party said there would be a one-off capital cost to roll out the full-fibre network of £15.3 billion, in addition to the Government’s existing and not yet spent £5 billion commitment.
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the costing was based on the Government’s review of the UK’s digital infrastructure.
But BT chief executive Philip Jansen said the party had dramatically under-estimated the price of re-nationalisation, saying it would be closer to £100 billion.
The Tories said the plan would “almost certainly be illegal under EU law”.
But Mr McDonnell said: “We’ve taken legal advice throughout our approach and on the legal advice we’ve had, which has been extensive, is it’s perfectly compatible.”
Meanwhile, Mr Johnson dismissed as “nonsense” claims that Tories offered peerages to senior Brexit Party figures in a bid to get them to stand aside in the election. Nigel Farage had claimed he had been offered a seat in the House of Lords in an attempt to persuade him to “go quietly”.
Mr Johnson said: “I am sure there are conversations that take place between politicians of all parties. Certainly nobody has been offered a peerage, I can tell you that.”