Forty-six MPs are urging Rishi Sunak to reconsider the Culture Department’s support for the Conscious Advertising Network, citing concerns about potential suppression of right-wing media and implications for free speech. The Sunday Times has more.
Rishi Sunak has been urged to intervene after the Culture Department backed a campaign that has been linked to a boycott of right-wing media outlets.
A group of 46 Conservative MPs have written to the Prime Minister after the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport suggested that the Conscious Advertising Network helped to protect “brand safety”.
Britain’s five biggest advertising agencies are among the network’s members and together make up 60% of U.K. advertising revenue.
In the letter the MPs, which include Liz Truss, the former Prime Minister, and Dame Priti Patel, the former Home Secretary, said that the five advertising agencies had boycotted GB News.
The network’s co-founders were members of Stop Funding Hate, a left-wing campaign group that encourages brands to boycott newspapers including the Daily Mail, the Sun and the Daily Express.
Despite its left-wing affiliations, the network’s campaign was praised in a Government consultation this year as having “a mission to protect brand safety through stopping advertising abuse and ensuring the supply chain uses good practice”.
Membership of the Conscious Advertising Network is growing, with nearly 200 brands already members, including Virgin Media and British Gas.
The MPs’ letter described the department’s links with the Conscious Advertising Network as “worrying” and compared the campaign’s boycotts with the ‘debanking’ scandal, in which politicians were refused bank accounts because of their views.
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