On Wednesday, I woke up thinking that I had a chance to represent
millions of Brits by opposing the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
(TTIP) and debating its merits with elected representatives from across the
European continent in the European Parliament. I was hopeful that I would be
able to speak up for the writers of the thousands of emails I've had from my
people who find this EU inspired agreement abhorrent. How wrong I was. From the
moment we entered the parliamentary chamber I knew that a stitch up was well way
underway. The typical bureaucratic, undemocratic EU type of stitch up that only
the big conservative and socialists groups can get away
with.
Those who oppose TTIP have every right to worry. This is a deal which
could force governments to contract out public services, like the NHS, something
I never want to see happen . It will elevate multi-national corporations over
elected parliaments, something which should never be allowed to happen and will
create a free pass for letting vested interests conspire against the public
will. Last but not least, it will allow the democratic decisions of tribunes to
be struck down by supranational courts under something known as Investor-State
Dispute Settlement (ISDS). These points should have been debated and made clear
to every MEP in that chamber yesterday.
So as people might have seen, I wasn't happy. The opponents of TTIP were
wrongly robbed of their chance to voice discontent over TTIP. Even when we lost
the vote by two UKIP still tried to fight the lunacy by pointing out that 40
MEPs could stop the session - 40 MEPS that our EEFD group had managed to muster
through an internationally coordinated effort. But yet again the Chair of the
session wrongly applied parliamentary procedures to shore up the EU Commission's
position that TTIP must be forced through at all costs.
Ukip believes that TTIP and all trade agreements made on behalf of the UK
should be signed by the UK government and ratified by the UK parliament alone.
It is important to recognise that the European Union's interests are not
necessarily synonymous with the UK interests. This deal impacts UK public
services and is an example of the EU doing something that the British people
have not voted for. I will never vote to give more powers away to the EU. This
is something I shall be fighting for during the upcoming referendum on our
membership of the European Union, British free trade agreements made by the
British parliament.
So when we do finally get our debate and vote on this issue, Ukip MEPs
like myself will be voting against the proposal. I believe that the British
parliament should be making our trade deals but in this instance I still
wouldn't support it even if it was made by British government, I couldn't ever
support a trade deal that threatens our most vital of services. This deal is for
the crony corporates, not for the hard working business owners in the
UK.
#StopTTIP
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