PRESS RELEASE
British MPs, Union Leaders Demand Conference To Cancel Greek Debt
June 29, 2015 (EIRNS)—Twenty-six British Members of Parliament and several Trade Union Confederation General Secretaries and others issued a public letter to Prime Minister David Cameron, demanding his support for a Debt Conference modeled on the 1953 German Debt Conference, to arrange for the cancellation of the Greek debt.
Leaders in the effort included senior MPs Jeremy Corbyn, who is vying for the leadership of the Labour Party, and MP Michael Meacher, a senior MP who battled Tony Blair’s destruction of the party, and challenged Gordon Brown for the party leadership in 2007. Corbyn opposed the Iraq War and was instrumental in the historic Parliament vote against war on Syria in 2013.
Both Corbyn and Meacher have called for Glass-Steagall, while Meacher signed the Schiller Institute petition calling for the United States and Europe to join the BRICS. Both sent video statements of support to the LaRouche-aligned Citizen’s Electoral Council conference in Australia in March 2015.
In addition to 19 Labour and 6 Green MPs, signers of the letter to Cameron included the General Secretaries of the Trade Union Council, Unite the Union, GMB (general workers), and TSSA (transport workers), as well as several other economic associations.
The letter reads:
"We call on David Cameron to support the organisation of a European conference to agree on debt cancellation for Greece and other countries that need it, informed by debt audits and funded by recovering money from the banks and financial speculators who were the real beneficiaries of bailouts. We believe there must be an end to the enforcing of austerity policies that are causing injustice and poverty in Europe and across the world. We urge the creation of UN rules to deal with government debt crises promptly, fairly and with respect for human rights, and to signal to the banks and financiers that we wont keep bailing them out for reckless lending."
Corbyn told the Guardian:
"There is no sane solution to the situation in Greece that involves repaying this debt. The only sensible way forward is to cancel the Greek debt—or at least substantial swaths of it—and for the international community to support Greece’s democratically elected government to rebuild its society and its economy."
Green MP Caroline Lucas told the Guardian:
"Austerity in Greece has been a profound failure, in both human and economic terms.... It’s time that European governments think again about how to tackle the crisis in Greece. A first step, which I’m urging David Cameron to support, is to bring together a European debt conference based on what happened in 1953 to help Germany’s economy recover after the war."
Both Corbyn and Lucas joined a rally in Trafalgar Square today to show solidarity with Greece.
