Back door threat

Our public services and our health service in particular, are facing one of the biggest threats in decades.

It comes in the form of an international trade agreement currently been negotiated without any reference to the electorate.

The agreement is called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Negotiations for it, which were initially held in secret, would allow the wholesale incursion by the private sector into public services and public procurement.

If passed, the agreement would make it almost impossible to bring poorly performing privatised services back under public ownership and threaten those already under public ownership.

TTIP is purely about increasing the power of multinational investors, generally big business and hedge funds, and reducing regulation on these bodies.

It would establish in law the right of multinational companies to sue nation states in a special court, The Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), if the nation’s regulatory framework were deemed a barrier to free trade.

Campaigning bodies including War on Want, the People’s Assembly and trade unions are alerting people to this threat.

People should contact their councillors, MSPs, MPs and MEPs demanding that they act and have public services taken out of TTIP before it is too late.

William Thomson

Campaigning with the 
People’s NHS

Camnethan Street

Stonehouse