Brown told: ‘Rich don’t have the answers to the crisis’ Criticism of Prime Minister’s commitment to a ‘new politics’ as he shuns the UN but attends the G8

Campaigners today criticised Gordon Brown for refusing to send a cabinet minister to the United Nations summit on the economic crisis (1), but personally attending the 'outdated and elitist' G8 meeting in July.

Jubilee Debt Campaign, the World Development Movement and War on Want argue that as the vast majority of the world’s countries are not invited to the G20 or G8 meetings, the UN summit is vital in enabling those least responsible for the crisis to make fair and effective decisions on the future of the world economy.

A commission, chaired by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, has already devised a series of radical recommendations for global economic reform, but the UK and other western governments have been trying to water down proposals, including threats of boycott and public rubbishing of the summit. There are signs that the UK has been putting pressure on developing countries to downgrade their own support for the summit. UN diplomats have revealed that British government officials have been visiting developing country capitals in order to "persuade" them not to send high ranking officials to the UN conference.

Nick Dearden from Jubilee Debt Campaign said:

“If we’re ever going to see a more just economy, the Prime Minister and other western leaders need to start listening to the majority of the world. It’s surely become apparent over the last 12 months that the rich don’t have the answers. If we need to clean up politics in the UK, it’s needed even more internationally, where the rule of the richest is still taken for granted.”

Ruth Tanner from War on Want said:

"Brown's is determined to see off calls for regulation and continue on the path of free market fundamentalism at all costs. The UK government has made no secret of its efforts to rubbish the UN process. Alarmingly it now looks like the government is also going out of its way to undermine the involvement of developing countries as well."

Vicky Cann from the World Development Movement said:

“The G8 is an outdated and elitist forum; the G20 is still unrepresentative and did not generate the radical ideas needed to make the global economy work for people and the planet. The focus on pushing free trade and rushing through the WTO Doha trade deal is a smokescreen behind which rich governments are hiding to keep big business happy. The World Bank, IMF and WTO need to be radically reformed and ideally replaced – not given more power over those countries which did nothing to create this crisis, but which are suffering most from it.”

Campaigners are particularly anxious that the summit agrees that transformative, structural change to the global economy is needed, not simply tinkering at the edges. Particular support is given to professor Stiglitz’s proposals for:

• A powerful global economic coordination council within the UN which would bring a more just and sustainable form of global economic coordination than is currently offered by the World Bank, IMF and World Trade Organisation;
• A debt restructuring mechanism, leading to cancellation of unpayable and illegitimate developing country debt;
• An end to the practice of forcing economic policies on developing countries and radical reform of international financial institutions and the WTO;
• New arrangements for a global reserve currency to replace the dollar.

Campaigners are also calling for climate change to be tackled through the United Nations and fear the G8 will pre-empt an international discussion at Copenhagen in December.

ENDS

Nick Dearden,
Jubilee Debt Campaign on 07932 335464

Kate Blagojevic
Press officer, World Development Movement
0207 820 4900/4913, 07711 875 345 E-mail:
kate.blagojevic@wdm.org.uk

Notes to editors

• United Nations Conference on the Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development on 24-26 June in New York City.
• Lord Mandelson “the era of the G8 is over” reported in Wall Street Journal, March 25, 2009, Norman, Laurence, "UK Mandelson: "Era Of The G8 Is Over".