A very dodgy international secret trade deal is looming. : Mon Sep 01, 2014 8:03 am  

The Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a very sinister trade deal between the EU and America currently being discussed in great secrecy. It is a deal that would give the global multi national corporations the legal power to sue individual governments for millions of pounds if that government took action that might affect their profits.
It would for example encourage US health care companies to sue any future British government if it took steps to stop the privatisation of the NHS. Similarly with the railways.

Last Saturday over a million leaflets about this dodgy trade deal were handed out across the country by over 9,000 volunteers. But there appears to have been hardly any publicity on the TV or in the papers. Keeping us all in the dark as usual.

For a lot more information about what is going on behind the scenes visit

Stop the TTIP Trade Deal at 38DEGREES.ORG.UK/TTIP

[Durham Giant]

Re: A very dodgy international secret trade deal is looming. : Mon Sep 01, 2014 9:51 am  

I have to say this deal is really worrying.

What it will do is cement in place legally a situation where the economics and political decisions made in individual countries will be subservient to big business.

For those who complain about losing powers to the EU this deal actually is 10 times worse than anything that the EU has come up with.

Re: A very dodgy international secret trade deal is looming. : Mon Sep 01, 2014 10:32 am  

We have the opportunity to exempt certain industries or institutions from TTIP, as the French and Germans have done. It should come as no surprise that this government have chosen not to apply such protections to the NHS

Re: A very dodgy international secret trade deal is looming. : Tue Nov 04, 2014 12:39 am  

This deal isn't "secret". It's been reported in various papers, publications, books, on web sites etc. all the way back to the draft proposal stage.

Whilst more could have been done to explain what is undoubtedly a terrible deal for the average person - the truth of the matter is it's a done deal.

TTIP is an upgrade to WTO, which itself was an upgrade to GATT. No-one other than the usual crowd who actually bother to, you know, read daily bothered to oppose the aforementioned. And it will be the same with TTIP.

Even if Our Saviour, Russell Brand, stirred the proles out of their beer-soaked stupor with his oratorical genius - TTIP would be railroaded through parliament.

Big, big money is at stake. You could pitch the wrath of two million or more protesters against such and it would be like asking Dad's Army to defend the village against the full might of a battle-hardened SS mechanised brigade.

Re: A very dodgy international secret trade deal is looming. : Tue Nov 04, 2014 1:03 am  

The SS lost, though.

Re: A very dodgy international secret trade deal is looming. : Tue Nov 04, 2014 7:24 am  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

The SS lost, though.

In fact, they never turned up at the gate.

Re: A very dodgy international secret trade deal is looming. : Tue Nov 04, 2014 10:19 am  

Truth be known, members of the SS who survived WWII came out significantly better off than the average British squaddie - who needed to live until the mid sixties before the economy took a turn for the better.

I mean, it's possible certain towns and cities in Argentina could have developed independently to look exactly like the picture postcard environment of the Rhine Valley...