TTIP Agreement - don't yawn, it's important!

Signed, and made a small donation. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. Things like TTIP agreement with their bland sounding titles pass us all by as they sound so boring and insignificant.

This is what is happening now between the EU and Canada. The worrying thing is that these talks are all so secret. If there is nothing for us to worry our little heads about, why are they not in the open?

https://www.opendemocracy.net/node/86374

As far as I can see, in or out of the EU the US would want a TTIP agreement with us in order to trade with them. Can anyone tell me why it would be different if we were to vote in or out?

According to emails I receive from my MEPs, there is a large group of MEPs who do not want TTIP. They are the only ones who are protecting the NHS from TTIP.
If we leave the EU, we will get TTIP without safeguards and the NHS will be open to plunder.
We will definitely get GM here because Monsanto will sue the government for affecting their profits by not allowing them to grow GM in the UK.

Lots of other stuff like that, too, Gracesgran.

Other governments have had to bow to the pressure of trade with the US and I wonder why we would not have to Jen. I wonder if we may not get a better deal with 28 countries than with one although I have no idea really.

www.patients4nhs.org.uk/free-trade-agreements-like-ttip-and-the-nhs/

Lots of other links on here, Gracesgran.

Already signed this.

I thought you (and a lot of other people, including me) thought the NHS was "open to plunder" already, dj, with or without TTIP.

bags TTIP is not only a threat to the NHS, but challenges the democratic process by allowing companies to fine governments for passing laws that reduce company profits.

It is, bags. However, TTIP and ISDS is something else. Please read about it.

Are the TTIP talks only with the EU, or are there talks independently with our government? (In which case our MPs won't be involved.) Is it only our MEPs who are against it or is there opposition from other EU members? And wouldn't we have a better chance of fighting it outside the EU when British needs can be independently negotiated? On past records British views seem to be pretty much ignored b the other member states, whatever Mr C claims.

You've got it right, Gracesgran.
On our own we would have no chance to stop TTIP and ISDS.

With the EU we do at least have a chance to save the NHS and other important things from TTIP.

nhap.org/fight-ttip/

rosalux.gr/sites/default/files/publications/ttip_web.pdf

A 42 page report by War on Want. Lots of detail in it.

Interesting point, nfk.

And the first sentence of the executive summary in that WoW document says it is exactly that: a treaty being negotiated between the EU and the USA.

One of the main arguments for voting out (Brexit) is that our democratic rights have less oomph within the EU because the EU is an undemocratic bureaucratic body, rather than a body of democratically elected representatives.

Doesn't put Obama in a good light, does it? If a Democrat President can introduce such a thing, what the heck would a Republican introduce?

They do say that US Democrats are the equivalent of British Tories. Hey ho.

Oh, look! Nick Clegg's in favour of TTIP too (p14).

Doomed! We're all doomed!

That is exactly what I've been thinking this morning too, nfk! or maybe ? No point angsting about something we've no control over.

That said, resistance to the deal (or at least to details of it) does seem to have slowed down the process. Apparently Obama was hoping to get it done and dusted last year, and out of the way of the US General Election.

My political cynicism is pushing its previous limits right now.

Not that I'm opposed in principle to GMOs, which seem to be a big no for many people.

As TTIP is for the most part a fairly 'secretive' bi - lateral agreement between the European Union and America I would have thought that is reason alone for some who on one hand are seemingly expressing we should vote to stay IN the EU at all costs to see a reason to vote OUT. The two thoughts are without doubt at odds with each other and which ever way you vote if you feel so strongly TTIP is the devils work (could well be) you will have to agree with one choice that upset you, that is a fact.

I have had the time to watch a fair amount of live and recorded 'goings on ' in the EU Parliament and there is not an agreement between the MEP's groupings I assure you. Aljazeera shows more worldwide political coverage than our slightly watered down news and you will see many demonstrations taking place over TTIP in Europe..

If we were out of the EU would we agree at some stage to something similar or indeed the same, I don't know. Leaving the EU would however give the UK the sovereignty to make the decision not Junker, Merkle and Schultz wouldn't it.

That's one of the things that has bothered me POGS - the fact that the EU is agreeable to and complicit in these very secretive negotiations. I was also not at all impressed with the way Greece is being treated.

Mark Steel recently expressed how I feel at the moment. I know it's silly but within its silliness is, I think, a kernel of truth.

www.independent.co.uk/voices/eu-referendum-negotiations-is-there-some-way-we-can-make-both-sides-lose-this-referendum-a6883441.html

"One of its most controversial elements would be the creation of a new supranational court, the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) through which foreign investors could sue governments, or the EU, over any action or legislation that hurt their businesses. It is feared that an American private healthcare firm which was prevented from buying up part of the NHS would be able to go to the ISDS and claim millions of pounds in compensation from the British government for lost business.

The appeal drafted by Unite says: “TTIP must not restrict the scope for decisions by any level of government, public authority or NHS organisation relating to public healthcare [and] must not give US investors new rights that they could use to sue any level of government, public authority or NHS organisation because of policies relating to healthcare.”

The appeal has also been signed by the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, the Ukip leader Nigel Farage, the Green Party leader Natalie Bennett, and Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood, and by Peter Robinson of the Democratic Unionist Party, and Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness.

The organisers, from Unite, say that they approached the Conservatives asking for support but were refused, and are awaiting a reply from the Liberal Democrats."

The tories have an overall majority, so if we opted out of the EU, they would win and we would be in TTIP.
At the moment we are part of the EU and can oppose.
It's done in secret, and the ordinary population, you and me, weren't supposed to bother our silly little heads about it.
If it wasn't for the MEPs, we probably wouldn't know about it.
If it wasn't for the green section of MEPs, it probably would have been passed by now.
That's why the EU is important.