Shadow Chancellor MP will use his speech at
the opening plenary of Labour’s inaugural International Social
Forum to call for a shake-up of international economic
institutions and greater democracy at the international level.
McDonnell will say at the Forum that countries in the Global
South have been shut out of decisions about the global economy
for too long. The principle that the has championed in its
domestic economy agenda, democracy, now also needs to be
championed internationally.
The Shadow Chancellor will use this first-ever gathering of
progressive activists, academics, and politicians to call for
greater international cooperation to tackle climate change and
corporate power. Speaking at SOAS University of London, he will
throw down the gauntlet to international institutions that should
be addressing these challenges.
will say:
- Labour has committed to ensuring that technologies developed
in the UK for the climate transition are made available free or
cheap to the Global South;
- Labour is consulting experts on fair taxation of
multinationals, so that companies are taxed in a way that
reflects where activity takes place and value is created;
- Labour is interested in exploring further advisor Joseph
Stiglitz’s proposal for a Global Economic Coordination Council,
to address global ‘spillover’ problems.
The Shadow Chancellor will reject the choice between xenophobic
nationalism and right-wing globalisation. Instead, he will say:
“another internationalism is possible.”
He will call on attendees at the Forum – which will include
former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, executive director of
War on Want Asad Rehman, economics professor Jayati Ghosh, and
climate activist Tina Ngata – to stop “thinking and acting in
terms of a past age.” He will urge attendees to see the world “as
it is today”, and to act boldly to build a new international
architecture.
The Forum will include plenaries on climate change, global
finance, the movement of people, and trade, as well as workshops.
On Sunday evening the Shadow Chancellor will share a platform
with Labour leader and others to close the
Forum.
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is expected to say:
“The reality is that for too long the World Bank and IMF have
failed to throw the entire weight of their resources and
expertise into tackling climate change.
“The WTO is in crisis in many ways, including as a result of the
US’s blocking of appointments to its appellate body. It has not
done enough to ensure integration of trade measures and measures
to combat climate change.
“The work of the IMF, the World Bank, and others has diminished
people power – contributing to a loss of political agency –
especially in the Global South.
“We are witnessing the latest wielding of that power. There is a
grotesque ‘gentleman’s agreement’ that the IMF and Bank will be
led by a European and an American. That’s the gentleman’s
agreement that has produced the bizarre spectacle of , architect of UK austerity,
sticking his hand up to be the next Managing Director of the IMF.
“One of our advisors, Joseph Stiglitz, wrote a report in 2009 on
reforming the international monetary and financial system.
“He called in that report for the creation of a new body, which
he called a Global Economic Coordination Council.
“That body would sit at the level of the UN General Assembly and
the Security Council.
“It would be a globally representative forum, replacing the
unrepresentative G20.
“It would bring the WTO, currently in crisis, formally into the
UN system.
“Those of us who aspire to a different order will need to do
similar work to reshape our international settlement, but in a
less top-down way.
“We need good ideas as well as an unleashing of people power.
“People who push back against the current form of neoliberal
globalisation are sometimes painted as reactionary nationalists.
“The suggestion is that there can be only two sides: defenders of
existing right-wing globalisation and xenophobic nationalists.
“But we have to reject this false binary depiction.
“I believe and assert that ‘Another Internationalism is
Possible.’”
Ends
