Radiohead back the Trade Justice Movement's lobby of MPs

Radiohead are backing the Trade Justice Movement's campaign for fairer rules on international trade, and in particular Scale Up for Trade Justice, an attempt to lobby all 659 of Britain's MPs in their constituencies over 24 hours on 27 and 28 June. It follows the Mass Lobby of Parliament the band led in June 2002. Stanley Donwood has made a graphic for the campaign.

Glen Tarman, the movement's coordinator, accuses the government of pressing for World Trade Organisation policies that favour rich countries and Western corporations while saying it wants trade to end poverty. The campaign means to keep the spotlight on it before the next WTO meeting, in Mexico in September.

Ed O'Brien wants every MP to hear that British voters want the rules rewritten so that trade works for the whole world.

Our politicians have failed to grasp what harm this government is doing by pushing for more and more free trade

Ed O'Brien¹

The band's interest came out of Jubilee 2000 and its work on the debts of developing countries. Christian Aid, Oxfam and CAFOD then told them that aid and debt relief, though essential, would not end poverty unless the rules of trade were challenged too, and O'Brien credits the Trade Justice Movement with making those rules understandable to the public.