Liverpool councillors have unanimously backed a motion calling on retailers in the city to stop selling the Sun newspaper.
A widespread boycott of the newspaper has been in place across Merseyside for __more than 25 years in protest at the paper’s coverage of the 1989 Hillsborough stadium disaster, which left 96 people dead.
At a council meeting in Liverpool town hall on Wednesday night, councillors backed a motion calling on shops to stop selling the paper, condemning it for publishing “blatant lies”.
“Due to crowd control mismanagement those fans, whose ages ranged from 10 to 67 years old, had the life crushed out of them,” the motion said. “Contrary to the facts, the S*n published a front page story with the banner headline ‘The Truth’ which contained blatant lies.”
The paper’s initial coverage claimed that Liverpool fans were drunk and had attacked those trying to help the victims of the disaster. The report claimed that fans had pickpocketed the dead and urinated on police.
“For this reason we call on all retailers and vendors of newspapers in Liverpool to stop selling the S*n,” said the motion, which applauded the work by campaign group Total Eclipse of the Sun for working to “rid Liverpool of the paper”.
A spokesman for the Sun said they would not be commenting on the vote.
After an inquest verdict in April, which found that the 96 victims had been unlawfully killed, the Sun again apologised for its coverage of the disaster, but drew criticism for being one of the few national newspapers not to put the verdict on its front page.
The paper’s leader column following the inquest ruling said: “The supporters were not to blame. But the police smeared them with a pack of lies which in 1989 the Sun and others in the media swallowed whole.
“We apologised prominently 12 years ago, again four years ago on the front page, and do so unreservedly again now. Further, we pay tribute to the admirable tenacity of the friends and relatives over so many years on behalf of the 96 who died.”
Speaking ahead of the vote, Hillsborough survivor Ralph Hadley, from the Total Eclipse of the Sun campaign, said that around 220 shops had already agreed to stop selling the paper.
The mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, said the newspaper would “never, ever” be forgiven for its coverage of the disaster. “If I had my way and we could legally do it, I would ban it from shops across the city region,” he added.
MP Steve Rotheram, Labour’s candidate to be metro mayor of the Liverpool city region, welcomed the councillors’ move. “I commend the work the Total Eclipse of the Sun group is carrying out to promote and celebrate establishments across our area that do not sell the S*n,” he said in a statement.
“I know individuals will agree with me that the lies and smears they peddled in coverage about the Hillsborough disaster were abhorrent. The campaign has garnered impressive momentum and it’s pleasing to see organisations like Merseytravel, as well as businesses within the Liverpool city region, take a principled stance and reject the sale of the newspaper.”