On September 27, The Foreign Policy Centre (FPC) with sponsorship from Nestlé welcomed GMF Senior Transatlantic Fellow John Audley to present findings from GMF’s Reconciling Trade and Poverty Reduction report to British MPs attending the annual Labour Party conference in Brighton. As part of a collaborative effort to renew the European debate on trade liberalization, the meeting explored whether the United Kingdom can lead an international drive to rebuild public support for trade policy.

This lively three-hour dialogue coincided with the Labour Party’s discussion of economic policy, as prefaced by Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown’s speech arguing that the party’s election campaign should capitalize on the economic strength of the country. Given broad public backing of trade liberalization in the region, Audley proposed that Labour Party leaders should encourage Brown to collaborate with EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson to forge a new alliance in support of trade throughout Europe.

GMF will continue to work with the FPC to press for trade policy reform in Europe and to explore the UK’s position as the next chair of the G8 group as another opportunity to widen the alliance among key industrialized nations. Additional meetings have been scheduled for November 22 in Brussels and at a later date in Paris (to be determined) to further discuss findings of the GMF trade survey and consider themes and challenges identified in Brighton.