Liverpool councillors have backed a motion asking shops across the Merseryside region to not stock copies of The Sun newspaper.

The move was made at a council meeting on Wednesday evening, where a motion was presented to councillors on the newspaper, regarding its coverage of the 1989 Hillborough disaster.

The motion, which was unanimously backed by councillors stated: 'Due to crowd control mismanagement those fans, whose ages ranged from 10 to 67 years old, had the life crushed out of them.

'Contrary to the facts, the Sun published a front page story with the banner headline ‘The Truth’ which contained blatant lies. For this reason we call on all retailers and vendors of newspapers in Liverpool to stop selling the Sun.'

The news follows a decision last week by Merseytravel, the main transport authority in the city, to ask vendors working across the city to not stock the newspaper. It claimed that people were ‘very offended’ by the newspaper’s coverage of the Hillsborough disaster and was calling for the ban.

Both of the decisions are a result of the creation of the ‘Total Eclipse of the Sun’ campaign, by Hillsborough survivors, families and campaigners, which has called on newspaper vendors across Liverpool to refuse to stock the paper.

It has the backing of mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson and Labour candidate for metro mayor, Steven Rotheram MP, and it claims to have 220 shops agreeing to not sell The Sun.

Rotheram said: '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.'

But the move has been slammed by the Society of Editors, who has described it as a ‘slide towards censorship’.