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Greens welcome Archbishop's Trade Challenge

26th April 2005

The Archbishop of Canterbury's speech today [1], warning of 'naive confidence' in free trade has been welcomed by The Greens' candidate for Bristol East, Arjuna Krishna-Das.

"Dr Williams seems to be very much in tune with Green thinking on this", said Mr Krishna-Das. "The other parties all have an unquestioning commitment to free trade and globalisation, but the truth is that it's anything but fair, and anything but free - the rules are skewed to favour the richest people in the richest parts of the world. US and EU farm subsidies are a classic example. There is no level playing field; the poor world is always playing uphill".

"Greens, on the other hand, have a range of policies to develop strong local economies that meet local needs, whether in Bristol or in Brasil. We don't need footloose companies leaving a legacy of unemployment if they can exploit cheaper labour pools elsewhere in the world. Unlike the 'free traders', we want to protect the powers of our elected governments to regulate the more damaging activities of unaccountable global corporations."

"The World Development Movement has just described [2] the Green Party as "extremely progressive and hard to fault on development issues" in its comparison of the parties. No other party scored more than six out of ten in the WDM's ratings"

"The irony is that the main parties are threatening us with the spectre of mass immigration unless we vote for them; but their trade policies, and their neglect of global environmental and arms issues, are a prime cause of people being driven to leave their homelands in the first place."

"We have to replace ever more free trade with ever more fair trade, and the Greens have the will to do it"

Notes:

1. News Item
2. WDM Press release, 21/4/2005
3. See www.greenparty.org.uk/news/1945 for a summary of Green Party trade and development policies