Charities like Oxfam are too close to New Labour

One of the biggest events of the G8 protests at Gleneagles will be the Make Poverty History (MPH) rally, which is expected to attract over 200,000 people. Oxfam is one of the main charities in MPH, a coalition of 450 non-governmental organisations (NGO). This movement has been enthusiastically embraced by Tony Blair, who has been photographed wearing an MPH wristband, and Gordon Brown. The millionaire rock star Bono called Blair and Brown “the Lennon and McCartney of poverty reduction”!

Arwyn Thomas

Some NGOs accuse Oxfam of allowing New Labour to co-opt the movement for its own ends. An NGO spokesperson complained: "They have incredible access, and that has meant that Oxfam are the ones called to speak on behalf of the whole development movement.... They have decided that, in the longer term, their interest is best served by being in with the government.”

Three years ago, Oxfam published a report that advocated the liberalisation of markets in the EU and other wealthy nations as the key mechanism for eradicating world poverty. This became the British government’s position at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks at Cancun.

There is a revolving door of personnel between the charity and the Dept for International Development. This is the same department that recently awarded the Adam Smith Institute the lucrative contract to advise on privatisation of industries and public utilities in the ‘third world’, with disastrous consequences (see the socialist issue 394).

Oxfam's former director, Frank Judd, became a Labour peer in the 1990s and then Labour spokesperson on international development in the House of Lords. Justin Forsyth, Oxfam’s director of policy and campaigns, moved seamlessly into the Downing Street Policy Unit. On the panel to choose his successor was Brown aide Shriti Varedi.

Varedi is well known to the rail unions. As SC Warburg's transport economist, she was deeply involved in rail privatisation, particularly the valuation of the BR rolling stock companies. These companies were grossly undervalued, allowing teams of BR managers to become multi-millionaires overnight.

She was then seconded to the Treasury to advise on Tube privatisation. When PPP policy came under enormous pressure, she was a hardliner in pushing the deal through. According to the transport writer Christian Woolmer: "Throughout the negotiations, she was particularly adamant about ensuring that control of Tube investment should not remain in public hands, and Kiley felt she was there to veto any vestiges of control with London Underground."

Varedi is now Brown's advisor on ‘third world’ debt. Privatisation has set back the rail industry decades. Free market fanatics, like Forsyth and Varedi, are not the solution - they are the problem. British officials at the WTO blurted out the government's real attitude when they told War on Want's John Hillary: "You have got to get real, the development agenda does not go very far. We have to be pro-business and pro-trade."

Blair is cynically using the MPH campaign to try to rehabilitate his image after Iraq, particularly with young people. Most of the people involved in the MPH campaign put in their time and effort with the best intentions but Blair will try to use the charities to subvert the aims of the anti-capitalist movement. It is essential that we put forward a clear socialist programme as the only way to really make poverty history.

Come to the ISR international youth camp

2nd to 7th July

Travel to and from Edinburgh & camp including food and transport to all G8 counter-summit events

£85 unwaged/ low-paid, £105 waged

If you can’t make the whole week join ISR on the demonstration in Edinburgh on 2 July

Travel to and from 2nd of July Make Poverty History demo in Edinburgh from London

£35 unwaged/low-paid, £55 waged

For details of transport from your area to the 6 July demonstration phone 020 8558 7947 or email anticapitalism@hotmail.co.uk