Radiohead backs weekend push for Trade Justice

Rock band Radiohead is backing the Trade Justice Movement's campaign for fairer rules governing international trade. The band, whose album Hail to the Thief was released this week, is helping promote 'Scale Up for Trade Justice' a national action to lobby all the UK's 659 MPs in their local constituencies over a 24 hour 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." CAFOD's Head of Campaigns Alison Marshall 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 in favour of 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 World Trade Organisation meeting in Mexico in September. Radiohead are helping us to do this." The Trade Justice Movement is a coalition of over 40 member organisations campaigning for trade justice not free trade with the rules weighted to benefit poor people and the environment. Members include Oxfam, Friends of the Earth, Christian Aid, the TUC and the National Union of Students. Lobbying will take place at hundreds of events around the country between noon on Friday 27 June and noon on Saturday 28 June, ending with a huge symbolic action which will take place simultaneously at festivals, rallies and celebrations all over the country. For more information visit the trade justice section on CAFOD's website at: www.cafod.org.uk