UKIP have made a
heck of a lot of political capital out of harping on about British
sovereignty. So much so that they have the Tory party running scared,
looking to ramp up their own anti-immigration anti-Europe rhetoric in
order to stop the exodus of voters, political figures and major party
donors from their party to UKIP.
Given their professed concerns
about British sovereignty it's extremely strange that the UKIP
leadership have remained almost completely silent about the secretive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
(TTIP) negotiations underway in the EU, which are designed to carve
open European markets (including the UK) for the benefit of gigantic US
conglomerates, to bypass the UK courts and to undermine British
democracy.
Investor State Dispute Settlements
The most concerning aspect of this so called "trade deal"
is the inclusion of Investor State Dispute Settlements (ISDS). These
new rules would allow corporations to completely bypass the UK legal
system and sue the UK government in secretive tribunals.
I don't think it's a radical view to say that if corporations want to do business in the UK, they should abide by the same legal system as the public.
They shouldn't just be able to run off to a secretive transnational
tribunal to sue our government every time the government does something
that the corporations don't like.
Here are a few brief examples
of how corporations could ISDS proceedings to bypass the British legal
system and undermine our democracy.
Well
done to the citizens of Germany, Austria and the UK for passing the
threshold on the European Citizens' Initiative against the TTIP
corporate power grab. The Netherlands, Slovenia and Finland are getting
close. I'm surprised to see Spain and Greece lagging behind given the
exponential rise of Podemos and Syriza.
To see the interactive map click here:
https://stop-ttip.org/signatures-member-states/ -
To read one of my articles explaining what TTIP is about, click here.
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.com/2014/10/ttip-biggest-threat-uk-sovereignty.html
