JEREMY Corbyn will today unveil a new plan to give free broadband to everyone in Britain – costing taxpayers a whopping £60billion.
The Labour leader will pledge to roll out the new state-controlled service over the next 10 years in the biggest offer of his general election campaign yet.
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It is the latest in a series of major renationalisation projects and would require seizing the telecoms service and major infrastructure network currently provided by firms including BT’s Openreach, Talk Talk, Virgin and Sky.
The cost of the move was last night estimated at an eye-watering £56billion, on top of almost £200billion of other nationalisation projects the left-wing leader has already pledged.
And Tories last night warned a state takeover of a high tech business like broadband would end in disaster.
Mr Corbyn hopes the plan will be the jewel in a series of retail offers to voters to but their votes.
Dubbing it “transformative”, the Labour boss will unveil the new policy during a speech in Lancaster today alongside Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell.
‘UNNECESSARY AND HUGELY EXPENSIVE’
Sources at BT said the Labour leader’s planned had stunned them.
The cost of buying Openreach and delivering superfast broadband to every home would be at least £56billion.
Last year when private equity funds were looking to buy Openreach from BT – valuing it at £26billion.
Openreach said earlier this year that to get superfast broadband to 30 millions across the UK would cost £30billion when the Prime Minister pledged to get the fibre internet into every home by 2025.
The BT source said: “We knew nothing about this. We don’t know if they plan to nationalise Openreach or the whole BT network – it wouldn’t be right to speculate.
“Chiefs at BT are in regular dialogue with all the major parties – especially during election time – so this has blindsided us.”
Tory former business and culture minister Ed Vaizey told The Sun: “They tried nationalising broadband in Australia. It cost billions and failed.
“This plan is unnecessary, hugely expensive and won’t work. Not even 1970s Labour governments promised free telephones.”
The cost of Labour’s plans to renationalise rail, energy, water and postal services would cost an estimated £196billion, according to Tory analysis.
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