When I first heard about TTIP I was hit with a despairing sinking feeling, so apologies for being the bearer of bad news. TTIP stands for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. It is a proposed trade deal which would undermine our democracy and allow corporations to sue our government for passing legislation which harmed their interests, for example environment, health, human rights or nationalisation. To those of you thinking “but they can’t do that!” I need to mention that Canada and China have already signed just such a trade deal. I was in Canada when they signed it and was horrified to see most Canadians had no idea it was happening until it was too late. I do not believe our government has the authority to sign away our rights, but whether they have or not, they are intending to do so.

Friends of the Earth has produced a factsheet which you can see here, but further amendments have also been made on the submissions page here. The consultation can be completed here. You can put whatever you like in each of the boxes, I emphasised that I was opposed to the deal in its entirety. Your comments must be your own as they will disregard any that appear to be duplicates. Some example comments from my awesome bro are below.

PLEASE share this widely and have your say before the deadline. Whatever other awesome things you are working on for our society TTIP would affect them all so make this your second campaign.