Dodgy Dealers protest outside Cable's office
We were there to ask him to put an end to government support for debt-creating deals via the Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD), a.k.a. the Department for Dodgy Deals.
The ECGD is a little-known government department which has supported some of the most controversial British exports of recent times, from the al-Yamama arms deal to Saudi Arabia to BP’s Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline in the Caucasus. Every time the ECGD ‘guarantees’ an export, it risks turning a British trade deal into a Third World debt.
Under the new government, Vince Cable is ultimately responsible for the ECGD, so we headed down to his office at 1 Victoria Street dressed in typical dodgy dealer attire and unfurled a banner with our message to him.
Seeing as dodgy deals normally take place behind closed doors, we decided to recreate one out in the open for all to see.
There are three key demands of the campaign against dodgy deals: an audit of all ECGD debts to cancel those that are unjust, much stronger standards for ECGD deals to ensure public money is used for beneficial projects, and an end the practice of automatically turning failed exports into Third World debt. We believe this is the best way to deal with past injustices, and prevent new ones in the future.
With over 10,000 postcards currently distributed around the country about the campaign, we were intending to hand in the first several thousand signed postcards we’ve received, as part of the demonstration. But, despite communications with his office in advance, Vince’s staff refused to come and meet us to accept the postcards.
After some discussion, we weren’t willing to accept the eventual offer from the security guards to take them in themselves, as we weren’t confident they would make it to their target. So after taking lots of photos of the protest, and talking to plenty of civil servants about the campaign as they came and went for lunch, we decided to return and hand the postcards in another day. Signed postcards have continued to pour in since then so the pressure will be even greater next time.