Trade Justice Called for at Year's Largest Mass Lobby of Parliament

|PIC1|Christian Aid supporters across the country will be taking part in a mass lobby of Parliament in London today calling for trade justice. Tens of thousands are expected to be there in attendance, and Christian Aid expects approximately 500 MPs to be lobbied today.

The mass lobby comes ahead of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting in Hong Kong scheduled to take place in December, and the campaigners in London will be calling on the UK government to halt persuading poorer countries to open their economies through world trade talks.

As an alternative, the campaigners are asking for poorer countries to be given more freedom to decide on their own trade policies in order to protect vulnerable farm sectors and to promote national industries.

Earlier in the week the Make Poverty History coalition announced that today’s mass lobby of parliament will be the largest lobby of MPs this year.

The UK Government’s 2005 election manifesto included a new policy, which states that poor countries should not be forced to open their markets. Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Alan Johnson has recently stated that this policy is his priority for the WTO. Campaigners welcome the new policy but are urging for evidence of it in practice.|TOP|

Glen Tarman of the Trade Justice Movement said, “The UK and the EU will remain obstacles to trade justice unless they make urgent changes to their position on non-agricultural goods and services and the aggressive stance of our trading bloc in WTO negotiations. Campaigners are coming to London to meet their MP’s face to face in the biggest lobby of 2005. If we are to make poverty history through trade justice, the Government must respond and act now to stop free trade being imposed on any poor country.”

This lobby is part of a mobilisation of hundreds of millions of people across the globe who are demanding that Prime Minister Tony Blair and other world leaders bring about a radical change to the way world trade is currently governed, and for a new system to be created which also benefits poor people and the environment, and not just the richer more powerful nations.

The London lobby will be supported by civil societies across Europe as national governments are lobbied for trade justice including a European wide lobby in Brussels on 21 November.

|QUOTE|The huge campaign has been timed to add pressure to a gathering of Trade Ministers from the 25 EU nations on 21-22 November meeting for the last time to finalise the EU’s negotiating position for the crucial trade talks at the WTO in Hong Kong in December.

Despite unprecedented pressure, world leaders have so far failed to deliver the urgent action required for a just world trade system, report Christian Aid. Campaigners, however, remain determined to push for change.

Over 600,000 people in the UK have already added their support to the Vote for Trade Justice, a special ballot calling on the Government to urgently deliver a just trade deal for the world’s poor.