Further UK MP supports Simultaneous Policy campaign for global justice:
Lorely Jane Burt - SimPol, PRESS RELEASE, 26th November 2006
Simpol-UK
Simultaneous Policy: Rediscovering the Sense of our Collective Humanity
PRESS RELEASE: 26th November 2006
Further UK MP supports
Simultaneous Policy campaign for global justice
The Simultaneous Policy (SP) campaign, aimed at addressing global
problems such as climate change, unfair trade and unsustainability, has
gained further support in Parliament. Lorely Jane Burt, Liberal
Democrat MP for Solihull, joined seventeen other MPs from all the main
UK political parties who have signed a pledge to implement SP alongside
other governments. (See website for full list).
Lorely Jane
Burt: 18th MP to join SimPol in UK
Concerned at the inability of politicians to implement stringent
environmental controls for fear of capital and jobs moving elsewhere,
the Simultaneous Policy is to be implemented simultaneously, only when
all or sufficient governments have signed up. Simultaneous
implementation removes governments’ fear that their nation would become
uncompetitive, losing investment and jobs, if they took unilateral
action. In this way, supporting SP is no-risk and is helping to build
international and cross-party support while opening the way to more
robust measures being adopted than those presently envisaged under
agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol.
But SP is not a policy being designed by politicians or political
parties. Instead, individual citizens around the world who support SP,
known as Adopters, are free to contribute their own policy proposals.
SP’s process of policy evaluation and development was launched earlier
this year by Simpol-UK on behalf of all Adopters globally. Unlike the
World Social Forum, SP offers global justice activists an open and
democratic means for developing a comprehensive range of global
problem-solving measures as well as a powerful way to drive politicians
to implement it.
While many MPs support SP on its merits, Adopters provide a vital
electoral incentive by undertaking to vote at elections for any
candidate, within reason, who has signed the pledge to implement SP
alongside other governments, or to encourage their preferred party to
support SP. In this way, politicians who fail to support SP risk losing
their seats to those who do. As an increasing number of parliamentary
seats and even entire national elections are being won or lost on fine
margins, only a relatively small number of Adopters is needed to make
it in the vital interests of all politicians to support SP.
Underpinning the SP approach is the recognition that all parties in
government have no choice but to maintain their nation’s
competitiveness, a fact which prevents them from taking the robust
action now urgently needed to solve global problems. Citizens in all
democratic countries are therefore adopting SP as a way to seize the
political initiative and to drive even unco-operative politicians, such
as the Bush administration, towards the internationally co-operative
solution that SP provides. Apart from in the UK , parliamentary support
for SP extends to the EU and Australia and progress is being made in
many other countries. SP is also supported by the prime minister of
East Timor , Dr. José Ramos-Horta, by Eva Quistorp, one of the
founders of the German Green Party, as well as by many ecologists,
activists and economists.
For further information visit www.simpol.org (global site) and/or
www.simpol.org.uk ( UK site) or contact Mike Brady on 07986 736179.
Adopting SP is free. For citizens, please go to
http://www.simpol.org/dossiers/dossier-UK/html-UK/how_do_i_adopt_sp-UK.html
For MPs or candidates, an SP Pledge form can be downloaded from
http://www.simpol.org.uk/pdfs/candidatesform0405.pdf
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