BORIS Johnson’s plans to sell off Channel 4 have been met with fierce opposition from members of his own party.

Tory peer Ruth Davidson described it as the “opposite of levelling up”. 

Plans to privatise the network were revealed last night in an email sent to staff by the channel’s Chief Executive Alex Mahon to staff. 

A spokesperson for Channel 4 said it was “disappointed” with the decision but would “continue to engage” with the Government on the process to “ensure that Channel 4 continues to play its unique part in Britain’s creative ecology and national life”.

Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries defended the move, saying proceeds from the sale- thought to be in the region of £1bn - would be invested in "left behind areas investing in indies and creative skills desperately needed in our rapidly growing creative industries.”

“We made more films here in last Q 2021 than Hollywood, many more studios opening. Funding creative skills is key,” she tweeted.

This morning, the Telegraph reported that ITV is understood to be interested in buying the channel, while Discovery has also held informal talks. 

Rupert Murdoch has been linked to a possible takeover, while bids from Sky, Channel 5 owner Paramount, Amazon and Netflix are also possible.

On Twitter this morning, Baroness Davidson made clear her opposition to the plans: “Channel 4 is publicly owned, not publicly funded. It doesn't cost the taxpayer a penny. It also, by charter, commissions content but doesn't make/own its own.

“It's one of the reasons we have such a thriving indy sector in places like Glasgow. This is the opposite of levelling up.”

Former culture secretary Jeremy Hunt also criticised the plan.

He told Sky News: “I’m not in favour of it because I think that as it stands, Channel 4 provides competition to the BBC on what’s called public service broadcasting — the kinds of programmes that are not commercially viable — and I think it’d be a shame to lose that.”

The sale of the broadcaster will likely take more than a year, with legislation needing to be passed in Parliament. The decision follows a lengthy public consultation. 

The Thick Of It creator Armando Iannucci tweeted that the government had effectively ignored the responses to that consultation.

“They asked for ‘a debate’; 90 per cent of submissions in that debate said it was a bad idea. But still they go ahead. Why do they want to make the UK’s great TV industry worse? Why? It makes no business, economic or even patriotic sense,” he said.

Labour’s Shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that it would “cause a great deal of damage to jobs and opportunities in the creative industries, especially in Leeds and Bristol, and Manchester, and outside of London.”

When asked if Labour would take it back into the public ownership if in government, shel said: “Well, I have not written our manifesto commitment on this overnight since this announcement was laid.

"There is going to be a very long and drawn-out, difficult process because there are many people opposed on their own side of the Conservative Party on this.

“They are going to have a difficult issue getting this through parliament, which is also why I don’t understand why they are doing it because of all the things that we could be spending our time doing in parliament right now, dealing with the pensioners who can’t afford to keep the heating on, the families who can’t put food on the table, people can’t afford petrol in the petrol pump, and we are going to be expending a huge amount of parliamentary and political time doing something that no-one in the public wants, and no-one in the industry wants either.”