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NDP Aims To Forge U.K. Labour Ties After Harper-Cameron Pact

NDP Looks For International Allies

Canada's New Democratic Party is looking to forge formal links with Britain's Labour Party and the Australian Labor Party, The Huffington Post has learned.

British Prime Minister David Cameron's speech in the House of Commons Thursday showed the Conservatives plan to use the global economic crisis as a rallying point and social democrats need to join forces to respond to them, NDP advisor Brad Lavigne told HuffPost.

Lavigne, the principal secretary to NDP interim leader Nycole Turmel, is heading to Liverpool this weekend to take part in negotiations with both labour parties during the British party's national conference, which begins Sunday.

The parties will hammer out potential areas of collaboration in the goal of signing a formal arrangement on how they could work together, Lavigne said.

Conservative parties throughout the world have intensified their cooperation, sharing campaign strategies and common policy agendas, he said.

"If we are a going to be responding effectively, to both the Conservatives electorally and on the policy front, we too need to work with our social democratic parties throughout the world," Lavigne said.

Although the global economic crisis, which according to Lavigne has been misdiagnosed and misprescribed, showed "the need has never been greater" for social democrats to work together, he noted the Conservative movement needed to be fought against on other fronts as well.

"Their crime agenda is the same, and wrong. Their approach to the environment is the same, and wrong," he said.

"Because the issues are so important, and global, the work needs to start right away," he added.

Lavigne noted that the Australian Labor Party has signed "memorandums of understanding" which outline how parties can collaborate, send delegations and share policy. And it is this type of document the NDP wants to pursue.

The NDP official said he had met with members of the Democratic National Committee and was also open to working with Democrats in the U.S.

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