A TOWN councillor has branded the press "hate-mongering filth" on social media after campaign group Extinction Rebellion blockaded newspaper printing works.

More than 100 Extinction Rebellion protesters used vehicles and bamboo lock-ons to block roads outside the Newsprinters printing works at Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, and Knowsley, near Liverpool, on Friday night.

Witham MP and Home Decretary Priti Patel said: "This attack on our free press, society and democracy is completely unacceptable."

But indepdendent Witham town councillor Chelsey Jay said on Twitter: "Well done @XRebellionU - if you were actually blocking ‘free press’ that wasn’t completely and utterly corrupt and feeding hate into our mindsets I wouldn’t be into this, but as it goes, the press are hate-mongering filth with an agenda to keep people blind, so, all good!"

The Newsprinters presses publish the Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corp titles including the Sun, Times, Sun on Sunday and Sunday Times, as well as the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, and the London Evening Standard.