Rock band Radiohead will join more than 10,000 people from across the UK when they take part in the largest ever mass lobby of parliament on global trade.
On 19 June 2002, people from many of the UK’s 659 parliamentary constituencies will converge on Westminster to meet their MPs and press for greater justice in global trade. Radiohead will be playing an important part in the lobby, which aims to send a clear message that British voters want the rules on international trade rewritten to favour the world’s poorest communities and safeguard the environment.
The lobby is organised by the Trade Justice Movement (TJM), a new grouping of charities, aid agencies and campaigning groups calling for fundamental changes in the rules and institutions governing international trade.
“People in Britain care passionately about the plight of the world’s poorest people and about the environment, and they will demonstrate this to their MPs on 19 June,” says Chris Holt, Co-ordinator of the TJM. “This event will not only show politicians that they have a clear mandate from voters in the UK to act to change international trade rules, but it may also become a significant landmark in the country’s political history.”
The focal point of the lobby will take place at 15.30, when a ‘Mexican Wave’ of noise will pass through the line of people waiting to meet their MPs. This will signal the beginning of the lobby, which will see MPs being taken in rickshaws to meet their constituents. The lobby queue is expected to stretch down Millbank, over Lambeth Bridge and along the embankment on the South side of the river Thames.
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