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Johnson Slams Labour's Vow to Partially Nationalise BT as 'Crackpot Scheme'

The Labour Party has pledged to provide every home and business in the United Kingdom with free full-fibre broadband by 2030, if it wins the general election, the BBC reported earlier.
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UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has slammed the Labour Party's pre-election promise to nationalise telecoms provider BT's fixed-line network in order to provide free full-fibre broadband for British people.

"What we won't be doing is some crackpot scheme that would involve many, many tens of billions of taxpayers' money nationalising a British business", Johnson told BBC radio. 

Johnson later spoke to Conservative Party activists and again commented on the Labour Party's plan.

"We are funding a huge programme of investment in our roads, in telecoms, gigabyte broadband, unlike the crazed, crazed Communist scheme that was outlined earlier on today", Johnson told Conservative Party activists.

He continued on by saying that delivering Brexit would "clear Britain's arteries".

"It will be something that clears our arteries, it will unblock our system, it will get us back on our feet and able to take advantage of all the things that we want to get from Brexit", he said.

The statements come after the Labour Party's promise to nationalise part of the telecoms provider BT to deliver the policy and submit a tax on tech giants to help pay for it.

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Labour Party member John McDonnell earlier told the BBC the "visionary" £20 billion ($25 billion) plan would "ensure that broadband reaches the whole of the country".

The Conservatives have commented on the matter, slamming the scheme as a "fantasy plan" that would cost taxpayers billions, while the Liberal Democrats blasted it as "another unaffordable item on the wish list".

The UK Parliament agreed to hold a snap general election on 12 December after the European Union approved a Brexit extension from 31 October to 31 January 2020.

No Evidence of Russian Interference in UK Politics

Johnson has also stated that there is no evidence of Russian interference in UK politics.

“There is no evidence for that, and I think we have got to be very careful before we simply cast aspersions of everybody who comes from a certain country just because of their nationality”, he said.

The British PM continued by saying in a BBC interview that he is not aware of the number of Russian nationals who donate large amounts of money to the Conservative Party, but emphasised that any such gifts were properly vetted and published.

In October, a security report was allegedly prepared by an intelligence and security committee and submitted to the Cabinet, alluding that Russia had played a certain role in the 2016 Brexit referendum and funneled money to UK political parties. The British government has blocked the report and indicated that the 50-page text would not go public before December.

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