How You Can Help (Version VI)

YOU can help us.

Here's how:

1. Sign the latest anti-BBC petition.  [Note: UK Parliament will send you an e-mail with a link that you need to click on to confirm your signature to the petition.  If it doesn't appear in your Inbox, please check your Spam/Junk folder].

2. Tell your friends, family, contacts and work colleagues about the petition and give them the link so they can sign it too.

3. Defund the BBC - stop paying the TV licence and boycott their programmes.  You can safely ignore TVL (who enforce the TV licence): they can only take action against people who co-operate.  Don't answer their letters.  Ignore their letters.  Don't telephone them.  Don't go online to notify them.  Just stop paying.  Don't answer the door to them.  Just ignore them.  

4. Write to your local MP.  If you're not sure who that is, you can search for your MP here.  We also recommend you use the UK Parliament constituency search page to find your MP's exact contact details, once you know their name.  Letters (snail mail) are the most effective, but e-mail is fine if that's all you have time for. It's best if you compose the letter in your own words, but if it helps, feel free to refer the MP to our website and key links such as the summary of our case against the BBC here.  If you do e-mail, make sure you include your address within the constituency, as that ensures a reply.  Do send us a copy of what you write and let us know if you receive a reply!  

5. Support our #AbolishTheBBC Challenge and help us take on the BBC live on-air.  Click here for more details.

6. Share our blog posts with others: click the social media links at the foot of each post.

7. Add your own comments to our blog posts to let us know you support us.

8. Visit and click 'Like' on our Facebook Page and invite others to do the same; 'Like' and share our Facebook posts.

9. If you use Facebook a lot, add our campaign banner to your profile photo.  Just save the .png image below to your computer [right-click, then Save as...], then go to the Facebook frames page and follow the instructions.

10. Follow us on Twitter, add the campaign hashtag #AbolishTheBBC to your profile description, and press 'like' and 're-tweet' whenever you see one of our tweets. 

11. Tell friends, family, contacts and work colleagues about our campaign and suggest they search online for our campaign #AbolishTheBBC.

12. Get in touch at campaigntoabolishthebbc@gmail.com, with messages of support, ideas, and suggestions.

13. Can you become a local contact for our campaign? We'd especially like to hear from people who live in the constituencies we are focusing on in Operation Target. Please check the list of the relevant target constituencies and get in touch with us if you're from one of those areas.

14. We're especially keen to hear from anybody who can promote our campaign and spread the word. Perhaps you have a network of contacts or influencers who can help?  Please e-mail us.

THANK YOU!

We're Back!

We haven't gone away you know.  We've always been here, but we've been busy with Operation Target, and now we're back.  We've had some good responses from local communities, and we have a lot to report.  We also see that the government have given their usual predictable and banal response to the petition.  In the event, we decided not to write to the DCMS, as we realised that would be a waste of time - but we will be giving them our response to their response.

We also note that the petition sign-ups have slowed down somewhat, so further work will be required in that regard.  Time to step-up a gear.

TARGET 20,000

THE NEW TARGET IS 20,000 SIGNATURES

Thank you very much for the support with our Campaign To Abolish The BBC, and thank you for all your support with the petition.

We don't have time for anything more than a short post as we all have regular work and also still have a large mass mailing to finish off for the campaign.

The petition is now at 10,000 signatures, which means a response from the government is required. We fully expect that the response will be dismissive, derisory, boilerplate rubbish. We will however be contacting the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, the department we believe responsible for this, to outline the kind of response that would be helpful within the realpolitical parameters that exist at present. We hope they take some notice of us, but we don't hold out hope.

The target is now 20,000 signatures - a tall order, but let's see how near we can run!

Thanks again!

And just in case you haven't signed or shared the Tim Price Petition, here's a link.

How You Can Help (Version V)

YOU can help us.

Here's how:

1. Sign the latest anti-BBC petition.  [Note: UK Parliament will send you an e-mail with a link that you need to click on to confirm your signature to the petition.  If it doesn't appear in your Inbox, please check your Spam/Junk folder].

2. Tell your friends, family, contacts and work colleagues about the petition and give them the link so they can sign it too.

3. To help further promote the petition, a very easy but important step you can take is to open a free account over at buffer, the social media tool, and schedule some automated messages for your Twitter and Facebook accounts with the petition link.  If you're really keen to help, then for maximum effect you should schedule for 4 or 5 messages to be sent out each day and re-schedule these every couple of days.  We appreciate that's something of a commitment, so if you can only manage to schedule one message for each platform per day, that would still help greatly, and would also mean that you only need to re-schedule the automated messages on a weekly basis.  Each message needs to be worded differently (though the change in wording need only be very slight) and should include the petition link [https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/226446].  

4. Write to your local MP.  If you're not sure who that is, you can search for your MP here.  We also recommend you use the UK Parliament constituency search page to find your MP's exact contact details, once you know their name.  Letters (snail mail) are the most effective, but e-mail is fine if that's all you have time for. It's best if you compose the letter in your own words, but if it helps, feel free to refer the MP to our website and key links such as the summary of our case against the BBC here.  If you do e-mail, make sure you include your address within the constituency, as that ensures a reply.  Do send us a copy of what you write and let us know if you receive a reply!  

5. Support our #AbolishTheBBC Challenge and help us take on the BBC live on-air.  Click here for more details.

6. Share our blog posts with others: click the social media links at the foot of each post.

7. Add your own comments to our blog posts to let us know you support us.

8. Visit and click 'Like' on our Facebook Page and invite others to do the same; 'Like' and share our Facebook posts.

9. If you use Facebook a lot, add our campaign banner to your profile photo.  Just save the .png image below to your computer [right-click, then Save as...], then go to the Facebook frames page and follow the instructions.

10. Follow us on Twitter, add the campaign hashtag #AbolishTheBBC to your profile description, and press 'like' and 're-tweet' whenever you see one of our tweets. 

11. Tell friends, family, contacts and work colleagues about our campaign and suggest they search online for our campaign #AbolishTheBBC.

12. Get in touch at campaigntoabolishthebbc@gmail.com, with messages of support, ideas, and suggestions.

13. Can you become a local contact for our campaign? We'd especially like to hear from people who live in the constituencies we are focusing on in Operation Target. Please check the list of the relevant target constituencies and get in touch with us if you're from one of those areas.

14. We're especially keen to hear from anybody who can promote our campaign and spread the word. Perhaps you have a network of contacts or influencers who can help?  Please e-mail us.

THANK YOU!

How You Can Help (Version IV)

YOU can help us.

Here's how:

1. Sign the latest anti-BBC petition.  [Note: UK Parliament will send you an e-mail with a link that you need to click on to confirm your signature to the petition.  If it doesn't appear in your Inbox, please check your Spam/Junk folder].

2. Tell your friends, family, contacts and work colleagues about the petition and give them the link so they can sign it too.

3. Support our #AbolishTheBBC Challenge and help us take on the BBC live on-air.  Click here for more details.

4. Share our blog posts with others: click the social media links at the foot of each post.

5. Add your own comments to our blog posts to let us know you support us.

6. Visit and click 'Like' on our Facebook Page and invite others to do the same; 'Like' and share our Facebook posts.

7. If you use Facebook a lot, add our campaign banner to your profile photo.  Just save the .png image below to your computer [right-click, then Save as...], then go to the Facebook frames page and follow the instructions.

8. Follow us on Twitter, add the campaign hashtag #AbolishTheBBC to your profile description, and press 'like' and 're-tweet' whenever you see one of our tweets. 

9. Tell friends, family, contacts and work colleagues about our campaign and suggest they search online for our campaign #AbolishTheBBC.

10. Get in touch at campaigntoabolishthebbc@gmail.com, with messages of support, ideas, and suggestions.

11. Can you become a local contact for our campaign? We'd especially like to hear from people who live in the constituencies we are focusing on in Operation Target. Please check the list of the relevant target constituencies and get in touch with us if you're from one of those areas.

12. We're especially keen to hear from anybody who can promote our campaign and spread the word. Perhaps you have a network of contacts or influencers who can help?  Please e-mail us.

THANK YOU!

Tim Price Petition & General Campaign Update

The Tim Price Petition is going respectably, but - as we expected - sign-ups have slowed-down after the initial novelty wore off. At just over 7,000 signatures, the petition has reached the natural limit of what can be achieved based on low-intensity effort.  In particular, we noticed that over the last two days there have been virtually no new sign-ups without our active intervention.  We are not aware of any other organised efforts to promote this petition.  Taking these points together, any further progress will depend entirely on our own exertions and those of our supporters.

As of this morning, we've stepped-up our sign-up efforts and we're starting to get lots of interest again. Certainly, we want the Petition up to 10,000 signatures at some point in September, if we can.  Given the radicalism of the Petition, even just 10,000 signatures overall would be respectable, though we do hope to exceed this.

We're also slowly building-up our campaign in other ways:

1. From tomorrow, we will be sending our a mass mailing to key contacts and influencers in local communities where support for the petition is strongest.  This will be an e-mail in which we raise awareness of our campaign and the issues with the BBC, and ask that recipients sign and spread the word about the latest petition.

2. We intend to get our campaign hashtag #AbolishTheBBC trending on Twitter.  Over this weekend, we will be bringing together the tweeps who want to help us with this for a 'dry run' and to formally launch this aspect of our campaign.

3. We will also be developing our web and social media presence further and hope to improve the look and professionalism of our 'brand'.  Some tentative steps will also be taken towards putting our campaign on a more 'legal' footing.

4. We will also be looking at ways to hone our social media strategy and work with other campaigners on lines of attack.

5. We will be expanding our presence online and looking at avenues to spread our message to a wider range of people as well as improve communication with our existing contacts and supporters.

6. We will be looking at how we can reach out to other pressure groups with similar interests, not just in broadcasting-related matters but across the spectrum of issues.  Some of these, we hope, will help spread the word about our campaign and the petition; others may assist our campaign in other ways, and possibly vice versa.

7. If the petition sign-ups continue to climb, we will consider making a surgery appointment with one or more of our activists' constituency MPs in order to begin pressing our case at a more formal level.  We know the reception we are likely to receive in some quarters, but we also know that at least a few MPs, especially in the Conservative Party, are (to some degree or other) quietly sympathetic to campaigns such as ours.

8. Another major aspect of our campaign at this stage is related to policy work.  We intend to write to every political party and campaign group registered with the Electoral Commission, and any non-registered parties and groups of which we are aware, with a series of questions regarding their policy on broadcasting and the BBC.  This is the first stage of our Green Paper process, which we hope will culminate in a consultation to be circulated among our supporters and any other interested parties.  

9. Finally, we will be filing a complaint with the House of Commons' Petitions Committee regarding the handling of our original petition application.  We are of the view that our own petition, which explicitly called for abolition of the BBC, was wrongly rejected.  Nothing can be done about that now, but we want to seek assurances from the Committee about the handling of any such applications in the future.  We also believe there are flaws in the petition process, which should be drawn to the attention of the Committee and on which we will be seeking a response and comment.

How You Can Help (Version III)

YOU can help us.

Here's how:

1. Sign the latest anti-BBC petition.  [Note: UK Parliament will send you an e-mail with a link that you need to click on to confirm your signature to the petition.  If it doesn't appear in your Inbox, please check your Spam/Junk folder].

2. Share our blog posts with others: click the social media links at the foot of each post.

3. Add your own comments to our blog posts to let us know you support us.

4. Visit and click 'Like' on our Facebook Page and invite others to do the same; 'Like' and share our Facebook posts.

5. If you use Facebook a lot, add our campaign banner to your profile photo.  Just save the .png image below to your computer [right-click, then Save as...], then go to the Facebook frames page and follow the instructions.

6. Follow us on Twitter, add the campaign hashtag #AbolishTheBBC to your profile description, and press 'like' and 're-tweet' whenever you see one of our tweets. 

7. Tell friends, family and work colleagues about our campaign and suggest they search online for our campaign hashtag: google #AbolishTheBBC 

8. Get in touch at campaigntoabolishthebbc@gmail.com, with messages of support, ideas, and suggestions. 

9. We're especially keen to hear from anybody who can promote our campaign and spread the word. Perhaps you have a network of contacts or influencers who can help?

THANK YOU!

So You Think Petitions Are A Waste Of Time?

Some people are understandably sceptical as to the effectiveness of petitions, and even think they are a waste of time.

Here's what we think:

(i). First, we must be clear that petitions are just one tool among many for campaigning, and we have plans for other campaigning styles and methods which we hope and expect to make use of in the future.

(ii). Petitions are a campaign 'tool' in three respects: first, they are a means to an end and can, directly or indirectly, bring about the realisation of the political goal; second, the campaign to promote the petition itself can lead to gains that promote the eventual realisation of the political goal; and, third, the petition itself must also be acted on in some way.  The first two points are obvious.  Regarding the third point, a petition normally implies that somebody will engage in petitioning of the relevant authorities, which normally involves engagement with law-makers and decision-makers.  This engagement is in and of itself valuable and useful, even if it doesn't directly or immediately lead to realisation of the goal sought.

(iii). A petition itself and its promotion is also a form of propaganda in its own right and raises awareness of the issue among people, keeps the issue in the public eye and on social media, lets people know that others agree with them about the issue and that 'something' is being done about it, and also lets people know that there is a campaign they can join and contribute to if they wish.  It also offers encouragement to others who may want to run their own campaigns independently of us but towards the same or a closely-similar goal.

(iv). It is true that UK Parliament petitions are a rather cosmetic exercise, but that should not lead us to dismiss petitions as a campaign method.  Voting and the secret ballot were initially a cosmetic exercise too.  Mass enfranchisement was a concession to the burgeoning industrial working class in the (not unfounded) belief that it could be used to manage and control the masses, yet voting has turned into the ruling class’s Achilles' heel.  It's all about how we make use of the tools available to us.

(v). It is said that petitions to the UK Parliament have not led to any legislative changes, but even if that is the case, it should be remembered that, first, petitioning is not an automatic law-making process; second, the effectiveness of any petition depends on a range of favourable factors that are often absent in amateur petitions, such as: the popularity of the issue, the underlying campaign and momentum behind it, how well-crafted and worded the petition itself is and - crucially - whether the petition covers a matter that is actionable by the government and Parliament respectively; and, third, petitions have influenced debate and can lead to changes in the law over time.  The change we want will not happen overnight.

(vi). Critics sometimes argue that petitions are a sham intended to fool us into believing that we somehow have a say in government and laws, but we are not so fooled.  We have never laboured under any such belief.  We know that petitioning is simply a campaigning method and nothing more.

How You Can Help (Version II)

YOU can help us.

Here's how:

1. Sign the latest anti-BBC petition.  

2. Share our blog posts with others: click the social media links at the foot of each post.

3. Add your own comments to our blog posts to let us know you support us.

4. Visit and click 'Like' on our Facebook Page and invite others to do the same; 'Like' and share our Facebook posts.

5. If you use Facebook a lot, add our campaign banner to your profile photo.  Just save the .png image below to your computer [right-click, then Save as...], then go to the Facebook frames page and follow the instructions.

6. Follow us on Twitter, add the campaign hashtag #AbolishTheBBC to your profile description, and press 'like' and 're-tweet' whenever you see one of our tweets. 

7. Get in touch at campaigntoabolishthebbc@gmail.com, with messages of support, ideas, and suggestions. 

8. We're especially keen to hear from anybody who can promote our campaign and spread the word. Perhaps you have a network of contacts or influencers who can help?

THANK YOU!

Our campaign banner for downloading:

10,000 Is The New Target

Day Seven of the Tim Price Petition, and we’ve crossed the 5,000 mark already.  

Let’s see if we can now make it 10,000! 

Here’s how you can help: 

1. Sign the petition.  

2. Share our blog posts with others: click the social media links at the foot of each post.

3. Add your own comments to our blog posts to let us know you support us.

4. Visit and click 'Like' on our Facebook Page and invite others to do the same; 'Like' and share our Facebook posts.

5. Follow us on Twitter.

6. Get in touch at campaigntoabolishthebbc@gmail.com, with messages of support, ideas, and suggestions. 

7. We're especially keen to hear from anybody who can promote our campaign and spread the word. Perhaps you have a network of contacts or influences that will help?

THANK YOU!

The Push To 5,000

As we type this, the Tim Price Petition is at just over 3,600 signatures.

Let’s now aim to reach 5,000!

Share the petition around – family, friends, contacts, followers, online forums, etc.

We can do this!

Sign the Tim Price Petition Today
Share It On Social Media
You Can Make A Difference!

How You Can Help (Version I)

YOU can help us.

Here's how:

1. Sign the latest anti-BBC petition.  

2. Share our blog posts with others: click the social media links at the foot of each post.

3. Add your own comments to our blog posts to let us know you support us.

4. Visit and click 'Like' on our Facebook Page and invite others to do the same; 'Like' and share our Facebook posts.

5. Follow us on Twitter.

6. Get in touch at campaigntoabolishthebbc@gmail.com, with messages of support, ideas, and suggestions. 

7. We're especially keen to hear from anybody who can promote our campaign and spread the word. Perhaps you have a network of contacts or influences that will help?

THANK YOU!

Why A Campaign For Abolition Is Necessary

We are the only campaign group that is calling for the abolition of the BBC – that is to say, our goal is that the BBC should cease to exist.  All other campaigns demand something less than this, normally one or a combination of the following:

1. that the BBC’s funding should be reformed through ending the TV licence;

2. that the Royal Charter should be revoked and the Corporation should be commercialised; or,

3. that the BBC should somehow stop being biased.

Starting with 3, we do not believe it is possible for any media organisation to be unbiased.  The goal is unrealistic.  The BBC is biased, but this is perfectly understandable: it reflects the people who work for it.  The BBC has to be defended somewhat on this point because once it tries to become ‘unbiased’, it will be playing a fool’s game in which it can’t please anybody.  We do criticise BBC bias, indeed it is at the centre of our concerns, but only on the basis that it reveals the shallowness of the Corporation’s notional goal of impartiality.  The Corporation has been set an impossible public mission that looks more and more chimeric as the technical and commercial realities of the digital age move apace.

Regarding 2, this is the subject of the latest anti-BBC petition (link - The Tim Price Petition). We have already made it clear that we do not believe this Petition goes far enough. Merely revoking the Royal Charter still leaves us with the BBC as a going concern, and the problems and potential dangers we cover below in relation to 1 also apply to this option.  Nevertheless, we are actively giving this Petition our support as a step in the right direction.  Should the Petition gain sufficient signatures for government attention or even be considered for parliamentary debate, we will be putting the case for abolition very strongly.

Turning to 1, we oppose the TV licence and we support and sympathise with all non-payers.  We believe passive resistance in particular is crucial to the eventual abolition of the BBC, but our point is that there needs to be an overarching strategic alliance for abolition, otherwise all that will happen is that the BBC will be reformed in a way that favours the elites: the worse-case scenario is a Corporation funded out of general taxation, the best-case is a commercialised Corporation funded by advertising or subscriptions, or both.  

Either 'reformist' funding scenario fails to solve the real problems.  The Corporation would be entrenched in British public life under a reformed structure, leaving us in a worse position than before.  In some ways, a fully-commercial BBC would be the worst of all outcomes because a revitalised Corporation could easily attract investment and unfairly dominate commercial broadcasting as an entirely profit-making enterprise.  This would be on the back of investments made over decades by the taxpayer, more or less at the point of a gun.

We come back, then, to the real problems, which are that:

(i). the BBC manifestly cannot fulfil its public mission;

(ii). the BBC is a subversive organisation that is undermining the country; 

(iii). the BBC is an archaic monolith, modelled on social-democratic era institutions and unresponsive to its putative market; and,

(iv). the BBC is too large and dominant.  

The 'reformers' who complain about the TV licence or BBC bias do have a point, and we are not trying to start an argument with them, but our aim shouldn't be to help the BBC by reforming it to make it run better and thereby cause even more damage to the country.  The BBC is an enemy bureaucracy and a waste of money.  Wouldn't it be better and fairer to dismantle the BBC and return the money recovered and saved to the public?  We think so.

Is abolition a realistic goal?  Emphatically yes!  We have seen with Brexit that populist campaigns can work.  Our aim is to persuade a major political party to adopt complete abolition of the BBC as its policy.  This in turn can only be achieved by creating a popular momentum in favour of abolition.

The Tim Price Petition - Day Three

Progress with the latest anti-BBC petition (started by Mr Tim Price) has been excellent.  We're at Day Three and we're heading towards 2,000 signatures already.

Our target now is to reach 5,000 signatures.

Please sign and share the petition around with as many people as you can.

Petitions DO matter - for one thing, it's a show of defiance against the Establishment.  Let's show them!

THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT!

You can sign the Tim Price Petition by clicking here

Petition

Our petition calling for the abolition of the BBC was rejected by the UK Parliament 'Petitions Team'.  It seems there is already a petition that deals with the same issue, posted up by a Mr Tim Price. Our own searches had not revealed it.

The petition calls for the revocation of the BBC Charter and goes on to state:

The BBC has a Charter obligation to be independent in fulfilment of its mission. It has repeatedly shown itself incapable of providing impartial reportage on major political issues. The BBC was established when there was no effective media choice. The licence fee is abhorrent in today's media world.

We have posted a link to this Petition below in case anybody would care to sign.  We would encourage you to do so:

Link to Tim Price's Anti-BBC Petition

[Note: when you sign the petition, your personal information will be disclosed to the UK Parliament].