PRESS RELEASE
15 August 2005

MASS LOBBY OF PARLIAMENT TO TAKE PLACE AHEAD OF WORLD TRADE TALKS

MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY and the Trade Justice Movement today announced that on Wednesday 2 November 2005 campaigners will stage a mass lobby of Parliament calling for trade justice not free trade.

Thousands of people are expected to come to London to lobby their MP as part of the MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY campaign. It will build on the unprecedented public mobilisation around the G8 summit in July and the significant work of the Trade Justice Movement, which in recent years has staged the largest-ever mass lobby of Parliament in Westminster and the biggest national lobby of MPs in their constituencies.a

Half a million people in the UK have already cast a vote for Trade Justice in a special ballot calling on the Government to support fairer trade rules. Many millions more watched as the G8 leaders failed to deliver the changes needed on trade.  They will now increase the pressure on the UK Government to take the lead at the forthcoming World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting in Hong Kong by helping to rewrite world trade rules to benefit poor countries and the environment.

Glen Tarman from the Trade Justice Movement, said: "We urge the UK Government to respect poor countries’ right to choose their own trade policies. We demand they stop pushing poor countries to open their economies through policies in the World Trade Organisation that are biased towards rich countries and their corporations.  We cannot make poverty history while these policies remain. 

When the UK public come to Westminster in their thousands on 2 November to call for trade justice, the UK Government must listen and work with its partners in the European Union to ensure a trade deal in Hong Kong that brings justice for the world’s poor.”

The UK lobby will follow Prime Minister’s Question Time and takes place alongside lobbies being held across Europe and around the world.

The mass lobby is supported by The Co-operative Bank as part of their ongoing commitment to the campaign for trade justice.

For more information:

Visit www.makepovertyhistory.org or www.tjm.org.uk
ENDS

Contact:
Catherine Cullen, Media Co-ordinator, MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY: 020 7561 7572
catherine.cullen@actionaid.org

To join the MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY press list please email catherine.cullen@actionaid.org

Notes for Editors:

The Trade Justice Movement

• The Trade Justice Movement (www.tjm.org.uk) is a coalition of more than 70 UK organisations, including campaign groups, trade unions, faith groups and environmental and development organisations, with a combined membership of over 9 million people. The Trade Justice Movement is one of the networks at the core of Make Poverty History (www.makepovertyhistory.org) - an unprecedented coalition of more than 500 organisations calling for trade justice, drop the debt and more and better aid. 

• The Trade Justice Movement's Mass Lobby of Parliament in June 2002 was the largest-ever such event and was followed in 2003 by the biggest national lobby of MPs when more than 500 parliamentarians were lobbied in their constituencies ahead of the last WTO Ministerial Conference in Cancún, Mexico, when talks collapsed. In April 2005 the coalition staged the biggest mass protest of the UK election campaign when over 25,000 people filled Whitehall at an all-night vigil.

• The World Trade Organisation (WTO) holds its sixth Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong, China from 13 to 18 December 2005. The EU represents the UK at the WTO as a trading bloc with a common trade policy. European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson negotiates on behalf of European member states.

MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY

• MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY is a unique UK alliance of over 500 charities, trade unions, campaigning groups and celebrities in partnership with the Global Call to Action against Poverty who are mobilising around key opportunities in 2005 to drive forward the struggle against poverty and injustice.

• The campaign was launched on 1 January 2005 and will run until the end of the year.

• 2005 is particularly important as the UK chaired the G8 meeting of powerful countries from 6-8 July and holds the 6-month presidency of the European Union.

• MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY challenges the government to deliver trade justice, drop the debt and deliver more and better aid in order to eradicate global poverty.

• 1 July was the first international ‘White Band Day’. Millions of people wore the white band and iconic buildings in each continent were wrapped in the symbol of the global campaign to make poverty history.  White Band Day 2 takes place on 10 September around the world with White Band Day 3 on 10 December just ahead of the WTO meeting.

• 250,000 people attended the MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY rally in Edinburgh on 2 July forming a huge white band around the city centre.

• For further information; photography; copies of our ‘Make History’ report on global poverty; a full list of coalition members; and for details of our key challenges to government visit the media section of the website: www.makepovertyhistory.org/media.  

• Photography:  Username: comic , Password: 12qwklnm