Radiohead back push for trade justice

Posted on June 12th, 2003.

Radiohead are backing the Trade Justice Movement’s campaign for fairer rules
governing international trade. The band are supporting ‘Scale Up for TradeJustice’,
a national action to lobby all the UK’s 659 MPs in their local constituencies
over a 24hour period on 27-28 June.

Ed O’Brien, Radiohead guitarist, said: "Our politicians have failed to
grasp what harm this government is doing by pushing for more and more free trade
- without taking into consideration its effect on poor people and the environment.We
want to make sure every MP gets a clear message that British voters want the
rules on international trade rewritten to make world trade work for the whole
world."

"On 27/28th June we are taking our message to every UK MP in their constituencies.
I would urge anyone who feels strongly about world poverty to join the Trade
Justice Movement MP lobby marathon."
"Radiohead’s involvement with the Trade Justice Movement really came out
of the awareness raised by the Jubilee 2000 campaign that highlighted the crippling
burden of debt faced by the developing world. Following on from that campaign,
NGOs such as Christian Aid, Oxfam and CAFOD were telling us that, although aid
and debt relief were essential courses of action in alleviating poverty in the
Third World, if we were to be truly sincere and effective in wiping it out in
the long term then the issue of trade and the rules that govern it had to be
challenged. This is where the TradeJustice Movement has come in, highlighting
these illogical and grossly immoral rules of trade, making it comprehensible
to us in the general public."

Glen Tarman, Trade Justice Movement Coordinator,said: "The UK Government
says it wants trade to help end world poverty. Yet the Government is pushing
for policies in the World Trade Organisation that are biased towards rich countries
and the West’s corporations. We want to put the spotlight on our Government’s
hypocrisy this summer, in the run-up to the next big WTO meeting in Mexico in
September. Radiohead are helping us to do this."

Anyone interested in finding out more about the campaign should go to the TradeJustice
Movement website where you can also find out about local lobbying events
on 27/28 June.

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