Ken Loach has encouraged Jeremy Corbyn supporters to call the BBC to complain about what he said was the broadcaster’s bias against the Labour leader.
The leftwing activist and film director said the BBC had the “pretense of objectivity” but was in fact a “propaganda” arm of the state. “The BBC is not some objective chronicler of our time – it is an arm of the state,” he said.
Loach was speaking on Thursday evening at a meeting at University College London organised to criticise the media for being biased against Corbyn. He encouraged the audience to phone a BBC complaint number. “It’s worth it. it makes you feel better. Give it a whirl,” he said.
He said there needed to be a plan to “democratise” the press. The director said in order to have a “license” to own a newspaper they would have run by a “collective of journalists”.
He added: “The BBC is absolutely vital, but don’t link it to the way the BBC is now.”
Loack also said Labour MPs who are opposed to Corbyn’s leadership should accept they may be deselected as candidates for the next election, director and leftwing activist Ken Loach has said.
Loach founded Left Unity, a party which stood against Labour in 2015, but now is a supporter of Corbyn.
“The deselection of MPs is presented as a threat,” he said. “It is not a job for life.”
He added: “Labour Party members have the right to be repented by someone they choose.”
Labour MP Anna Turley told The Huffington Post that MPs “are the last people to think it’s a job for life. That’s why we are determined to be electable”.
The film director also attacked Labour HQ for the manner in which it was preventing people it felt did not share the party’s values from voting in the Labour leadership contest.
“The purge has been extraordinary. People are being purged all over the place. People are being purged for retweeting something Caroline Lucas said. People are being purged for ridiculous reasons,” he said.
Labour MPs opposed to Corbyn’s leadership have complained allies of the leader are using the threat of reselection to try and silence criticism. On member of Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) said the changes were an opportunity for party members to deselect MPs who had shown “disloyalty” to Corbyn and replace them with more loyal candidates.
Owen Smith today accused Momentum, the pro-Corbyn campaign group, of “trying to get rid of good Labour MPs through deselection”.
Loach is due to speak at the pro-Corbyn Momentum conference in Liverpool next weekend - being held alongside the Labour Party’s annual gathering. On September 24 the result of the leadership contest between Corbyn and Smith will be announced.