TTIP unravelling

Progress on negotiations over the controversial EU-US trade deal, known as TTIP, has gone into reverse, thanks to mounting public pressure from activists in the UK and across Europe. Unite has been campaigning for an end to the TTIP in its entirety – and other similar deals.

 
Following an unprecedented number of objections in an EU-wide consultation exercise—150,000 in total, with more than a third coming from the UK—ISDS provisions, which allow multinational companies to sue governments in secret courts, have now been tabled.

 
As UNITElive has reported before, ISDS provisions threaten democracy and public services by granting multinational corporations unprecedented powers.

 
The NHS could be a sacrificial lamb at the altar of privatisation if the trade deal comes to pass. For example, the provisions could empower US health companies to sue the UK government if it tries to bring privatised parts of the health service back under public control. This would make privatisation of the NHS irreversible.

 
In a Mirror column today, Unite general secretary Len McCluskey highlighted the dangers TTIP poses to the NHS.

 
Using the example of Circle, a company which backed out of the disastrous privatisation of a Hinchingbrooke hospital, the first experiment of its kind, McCluskey said that TTIP, “a Godzilla agreement”, would make such failures common.

 
“The TTIP means we will never be able to rid our services of profit-first companies like Circle,” he said. “This government backs the TTIP, just as it backs selling off our NHS.”

 
While prime minister David Cameron said that the fears the public have over TTIP are unfounded, the consequences of provisions like ISDS already have chilling precedents. For example, tobacco company Phillip Morris is currently suing Australia and Uruguay under similar provisions. This isn’t an isolated example – corporate arbitration against governments is skyrocketing, as the Economist recently pointed out.

 
That these lawsuits are held in secret courts, beyond the purview of public scrutiny, makes them an even more sinister threat to democracy.

 
In a Guardian comment piece today, columnist George Monbiot analyses the purpose of ISDS mechanisms, after having sought the justification for such provisions from various government sources.

 
“No one will provide a justification because no one can,” Monbiot wrote. “To protect transnational capital from a non-existent risk, our governments are recklessly abandoning the principle of equality before the law.”

 
McCluskey argues that there is clear and overwhelming public opposition to TTIP, which pits Cameron’s wholehearted support of the agreement against the will of the people.

 
Commenting on the inclusion of the NHS in the agreement, which poll after poll shows the public rejects, McCluskey said, “The people of this country do not believe it is right for the NHS to be part of a US trade deal. Britain expects David Cameron to stand up for the NHS and use his veto in Europe to get the NHS out of TTIP.”

 
“The NHS unites this country,” he added. “It is the single most important local issue for voters. The prime minister has cut himself adrift from public opinion by refusing to listen. Britain is demanding that he uses his veto.”

 
Despite negotiations over TTIP having hit a snag following public opposition to ISDS, the fight against unbridled privatisation that these agreements embrace is far from over.

 
Even without ISDS, TTIP, like so many multilateral trade agreements before it, create an undeniable race to the bottom in which labour and environmental protections are swept aside as giant corporations chase outrageous profits. The pernicious effects of these trade agreements have already been widely documented.

 
As TTIP will be discussed in the House of Commons tomorrow and negotiations resume in February, public opposition is more important now than ever before.