16 November 2005

Pressure on Tony Blair to lead a pro-poor global trade deal intensifies as MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY campaigners announce that their mass lobby of Parliament to stop developing countries being pushed to open their markets broke a British record.

MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY and the Trade Justice Movement today announce that the mass lobby of parliament held on 2 November was the largest in the history of modern British democracy with trade justice campaigners lobbying 375 MPs in a single day. 

Over 8,000 campaigners joined the lobby with a demand that the UK Government and its European Union (EU) partners stop pushing poor countries to open their markets in approaching world trade talks. They warned the Prime Minister that generations of people will continue to live in poverty if his manifesto promise to allow poor countries to protect their markets is broken. 

European trade commissioner Peter Mandelson has tabled an EU offer at the WTO talks that does not address the scandal of subsidised products dumped in poor country markets and also calls for developing countries to open their markets to rich countries. Campaigners say this latest move places trade talks on completely the wrong track to make poverty history.        

Glen Tarman, Trade Justice Movement coordinator, said for MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY:

"As the WTO meeting fast approaches, no politician in this country can claim not to have heard the demands of campaigners.  The Prime Minister is right to say that making trade work for all is a test. Yet, unless he acts now to change the poverty making offer and aggressive agenda Europe has put forward, that test will be failed.

"If we are to make poverty history, the UK and the EU must allow poor countries the freedom to choose how to make trade work best for their economies.  MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY calls for justice not charity and now that the spotlight is shining on the WTO, the UK Government must take action on its promises to deliver justice for the world's poor."

The mass lobby is the latest event supporting the campaign's demand for trade justice not free trade which has been gathering momentum as December's World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks approach.  In April, 25,000 people took part in an overnight vigil for trade justice; it was the biggest protest in an election period and nearly one million of the UK electorate have cast a Vote for Trade Justice in a special ballot calling on the Government to urgently deliver a just trade deal for the world's poor.  

As Blair talks of global leadership, campaigners across the UK prepare for Saturday 10 December, the third White Band Day in the year of MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY, just days before the WTO meeting begins.  It is a day of global campaigning when trade justice campaigners will stand together as part of an unparalleled mobilisation of hundreds of millions of ordinary people.  The call will be the same whatever the location: Tony Blair and other rich country leaders must make radical changes to the way world trade is currently managed so it benefits poor people and the environment and not just the rich and powerful.