Senior Tories provoke advertising ‘boycott’ row with calls for PM to intervene

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Senior Conservatives have been accused of being “anti-freedom” after calling for Rishi Sunak to intervene over an advertising “boycott” of some TV channels. A group of high-profile Tories, including former prime minister Liz Truss, has written to the Prime Minister urging him to cut ties with the Conscious Advertising Network, which campaigns to break “the economic link between advertising and the harmful content that divides communities”. The proposal for state intervention in the advertising industry called for in this letter is anti-freedom and anti-choice Conscious Advertising Network Can was a contributor to a recent Government consultation on online advertising, and the letter called for Mr Sunak to ensure “its politically motivated activists are kept well away from government policy”. Do the MPs not support advertisers’ freedom to choose where they advertise, and ordinary Briton’s right to freedom from harm?” In addition to its criticism of Can, the MPs’ letter accused five major advertising agencies – WPP, Publicis, Dentsu, Omnicom and the Interpublic Group – of engaging in an effective “boycott” of “certain Ofcom-regulated TV channels”.