Hi John,
Today, the Financial Services and Markets Bill is being debated in parliament. It's a key part of Rishi Sunak’s plan to unleash a new wave of financial deregulation. The cold winter of the cost of living crisis is really biting home now, yet this bill risks driving up the price of energy and food even further.
Over 35,000 people have already signed our petition calling for an end to this bonfire of banking rules. The House of Lords will debate the bill in detail over the next week ahead of a vote on amendments at the next stage, and we are going to send peers the petition to make sure they know how important this is.
Can you add your name, and help us get up to 50,000 signatures?
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A speculators’ charter
The Financial Services and Markets Bill would take the brakes off speculation by banks and hedge funds on energy and food prices. It will make it easier for speculators to gamble on prices in commodity markets.
The bankers are just chasing profits in what, for them, are abstract numbers on a screen, but the effects on people’s lives in the real world can be devastating. Speculative trading in oil prices was a driver in the huge spike in energy prices earlier this year that has led to the current cost of living crisis that we are all trying to cope with – both in the UK and around the world.(1)
Ten years ago, following the 2008 financial crisis, we were part of a campaign that succeeded in winning some new rules that tried to rein in speculation – it wasn’t everything we’d wanted, but it was a step in the right direction. Now the lessons of that crisis seem to have been forgotten and instead this bill could sow the seeds of the next one.
Rishi Sunak is a banker who is governing for the bankers and the City of London. Although less in-your-face about it than Liz Truss, he believes in the discredited idea that if bankers and the richest make a fortune, that will ‘trickle down’ to the rest of us. Whereas what actually happens is the richest 1% grab twice as much as everyone else put together and keep a firm hold on it.(2)
This is a bill for bankers that will leave the rest of us out in the cold, if we don’t take action.
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We’ve been working with some members of the House of Lords who are putting forward amendments to try and keep stronger rules on speculation. We want to show the public is behind this.
Deregulating the financial system is unsafe, unnecessary and unpopular. Making it easier for bankers to gamble on food and energy prices in the middle of a cost of living crisis is reckless beyond belief. Let’s see if we can put a stop to it.
In solidarity,
Jean Blaylock,
Campaigner at Global Justice Now
Notes
- “Beware the algorithms driving up food prices” Financial Times, 10 February 2022; “The oil casino”, Energy Intelligence, 16 March 2022
- “Richest 1% bag nearly twice as much wealth as the rest of the world put together over the past two years”, Oxfam, 16 January 2023
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