Thought this might be of interest to people on here. Would also be interested in people’s opinions, pros, cons, any fatal flaws? Seems to make sense to me. Although I reckon it’ll be something that will take time to gather momentum. As awareness of it increases, and as more political candidates sign up, the pressure on those who haven’t increases, so it should snowball.
Simpol-UK
Simultaneous Policy: Using Our Votes to Take Back
the World
PRESS RELEASE: 2nd March 2005
Global Justice Campaign Wins First UK Marginal
Constituency
Jim Knight, Labour MP for the marginal constituency
of South Dorset, has become the latest MP to support
the Simultaneous Policy (SP), an international
citizens’ campaign for global justice and
sustainability, also known as “Simpol”.
Simpol-UK, the UK branch of the International
Simultaneous Policy Organisation, is a movement of
citizens who use their votes in a new way to solve
global problems, but Simpol is not a political
party. Instead it invites citizens to develop the
Simultaneous Policy as their own set of policy
measures to address global issues such as global
warming, corporate abuse, unsustainability and
unfair trade. They then vote at election time for
any candidate who has signed a pledge to implement
SP simultaneously alongside other governments or, if
they have a party preference, they encourage their
party to sign the pledge. The implementation of
problem-solving policies by many governments
simultaneously is seen as a way of eliminating the
fear of economic competitive disadvantage that
prevents many global problems from being solved.
Similar ‘simpol’ campaigns are also running in many
other countries.
“The more parliamentary seats become increasingly
marginal, the lower is the number of SP adopters
needed for politicians to see supporting SP as being
in their vital electoral interests. With citizens’
support growing rapidly, candidates who fail to
support SP could soon find themselves un-seated by
those that do,” said John Bunzl, Simpol’s founder.
At the last General Election, Mr. Knight won his
seat by a mere 153 votes. Seeing the opportunity to
capitalise on the vulnerability of marginal
constituencies, Simpol-UK is now gearing up to gain
further support in the forthcoming general election
and has published a web page listing MPs and
candidates that have so far signed on.
“The forces of globalisation are making the world
effectively a smaller place. It is increasingly
necessary to act together internationally to tackle
the problems we face at home. Simultaneous action on
issues such as climate change, fair trade,
immigration, terrorism and health pandemics is the
ideal means of resolving them,” said Mr. Knight in
signing the SP Pledge. He joins six other MPs
including three Labour, two Liberal Democrats and
one from Plaid Cymru, in his support for SP. Members
of the European and Australian Parliaments have also
signed the SP pledge and more are expected to
follow.
For further information visit http://www.simpol.org (global
site) and/or http://www.simpol.org.uk (UK site) Or contact Mike
Brady on 07986 736179.
Adopting SP is free. Go to:
http://www.simpol.org/dossiers/dossier-UK/html-UK/how_do_i_adopt_sp-UK.html
