Welcome

02Welcome 03 News from Global Justice Now 04 Trade justice 07 Aid watch 08 Access to medicine 10 Climate justice 11 Debt cancellation Scottish activities 12Groups and activism news

Inserts

Trade

• Leaflet: Stop the US trade deal • Game for use on stalls (groups only) • QR code display for stalls

We can defeat the US trade deal, whoever is in the White House

James O’Nions Activism team

This November, the US presidential election offers Americans a stark choice. Yet while the rest of us don’t get even get that choice, we will surely be affected by the results.

On the most basic level, Trump’s rejection of multilateralism makes the world a more dangerous place. Pulling funding for the World Health Organisation in the middle of a pandemic is a case in point. And there is little doubt his election gave and gives confidence and succour to some of the most odious characters in global politics, from Bolsonaro in Brazil to Duterte in the Philippines.

In the UK there is little doubt that Trump’s continuing presidency will make it easier for Johnson’s government to strike a trade deal with the US. Trump sees ideological allies in the Brexiteers, and knows a US-UK trade deal will help him undermine the European Union.

Yet when it comes to the detail of the deal, it is US corporations pushing for chlorinated chicken, access to the NHS and much more. Those corporate lobbyists got a sympathetic hearing from the Trump administration, but they will still be around should Biden win in November. TTIP, the failed US-EU deal, was an Obama era initiative after all, and while Biden faces a very different political context, he still comes from the same stable. Our main advantage with Biden will not be that he’s opposed to a trade deal with the UK, but that it will not be such a political priority for him. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t happen.

The deal has actually faced significant opposition in the UK, not just from Johnson’s usual opponents, but also from farmers and in the pages of the Daily Mail. Polling suggests a huge majority of the public in general don’t want to see standards undermined by the deal. That means our strategy has to be to continue to make the deal more and more toxic, forcing the government to make concessions to UK public opinion that eventually make the deal not worth doing for US corporations.

Our day of action against the deal on 24 October (see page 4) will be a chance to say loudly and clearly, whoever wins the US election, we don’t want a trade deal.

Media highlights

Heidi Chow has letters in the local paper from members in

been quoted widely on access to the coronavirus vaccine, including regularly in the Independent, in a Guardian letter and on the Telegraph website. Nick Dearden also wrote for the Guardian on big pharma and the pandemic, while our work was also quoted in the Scotsman and hold of the activism team (Effie, Guy, Sam

the National. There was an article about Luigi Ceccaroni, the vaccine trial volunteer who has worked with us on AstraZeneca, in Huffington Post, and he had a comment piece published in OpenDemocracy.

Nick has been frequently quoted on the USUK trade deal, and has written articles for the and Independent. Extracts from Nick’s book have been published in Tribune, the Ecologist and Fabian Review, and he has spoken about the book on podcasts/webinars with Another Europe Is Possible, Open Democracy and The World Transformed. Other US trade deal coverage has included a letter in Prospect, articles in Computer Weekly, and Southampton and Bournemouth.

Our aid campaign featured in a front page story in the Times on further aid money being spent on luxury hotels in August. Our research into fossil fuel financing through development bank CDC was reported in the Guardian in June, and Daniel Willis had an article in the Ecologist. Our reaction to the scrapping of DfID was widely quoted in June.

On debt, Nick was quoted in the Guardian on Argentina’s debt, and wrote articles for New Internationalist and Tribune on debt and Covid-19. On activism, James O’Nions was interviewed by ITV News on how to protest in a Covid-safe way.

Contacting the activism team

The Global Justice Now London office is currently open in a limited way, with a few staff usually in each day. The best way to get Church Times, Open Democracy, Guardian,

and James) is by email, either our personal emails or activism@globaljustice.org.uk.

The main office phone is on a redirect to allow it to be answered on a rota by staff working from home. That means you can’t just be ‘put through’ to us, but either leave a message or email us your number and we’re happy to call you back to discuss things. We can generally send out materials, but it may take a little longer than normal.

Action checklist

Trade justice

Plan an activity for the US trade deal day of action on 24 October.

Meetings

If your group hasn’t been meeting because of the coronavirus, consider contacting the activism team for help with meeting online. Invite a Global Justice Now campaigner to speak about one of our campaigns at your meeting.

Climate justice

Write to your MP about ending UK financial support for fossil fuels overseas.