Weighing in in Liverpool

By Mark Coleman
28 June

150 people from all around Liverpool came together today to scale up for trade justice at the Pierhead, with unfair games and some giant scales.

One batch of lobbyists being weighed

Campaigners travelled in across the Mersey, from the Wirral, St Helens, and Cheshire.

Louise Ellman, MP for Liverpool Riverside, urged the crowd to keep campaigning energetically for trade justice, and Dr John Pugh, MP for Southport, congratulated local people for making the connection between their lives in the UK and the lives of those living in poverty in the wider world. The needs of developing countries cannot be separated from our own, he stressed.

Many other local MPs had been lobbied in the days running up to the event.

While adults signed campaign postcards, children played unfair games to illustrate how trade rules are weighted against the poor, and many got a ride in special trade justice rickshaw.

Bit by bit the giant industrial scales set up on the Pierhead were tipped in favour of trade justice as campaigners and passers-by 'added their weight' to the campaign. By early afternoon a total of 6,515 kg kilogrammes of local weight had been collected!

Local campaigner Linda Tiongco said, 'It was really powerful. The MPs were really impressed with the way that local people were standing up for the voiceless.'

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