Post by adrianc on Apr 30, 2016 9:24:38 GMT
Apr 30, 2016 8:55:15 GMT Liz said:
You are so funny, one little comment about concerns of a trade deal and you get aggressive, sarcastic, and rudeAggression and rudeness were not my intent at all. My sincere apologies if you interpreted it as such.
bring the eu debate into it
Well, it's the only way to get back that "scandal" of MPs not having "democratic powers" that you quoted (which sounds like a straight recycled Farage soundbite). It's the only way that the UK isn't going to be part of TTIP, in whatever form it's finally agreed.
talk of knee jerk action
How else would you describe "outright opposition" to something several years before what's being opposed is even defined?
talk of putting 800m people in a room
How else can you avoid waiting until a deal, any deal, is agreed before expressing concerns with it - other than by having all stakeholders directly involved in the negotiations? Yes, OK, perhaps that was slightly sarcastic...
The reality is that any deal is negotiated by a smallish team of negotiators. There's a round of negotiation, the results of which are then taken back and discussed by each side, with those concerns and changes and additions fed back to the next round - it's an iterative process, and the 13th iteration finished yesterday, with more to come. The basic shape of TTIP exists, of course it does - but the detail is what's being argued over, and we all know what Mies van der Rohe said about that.
My point is a simple one. There are massive, MASSIVE amounts of complete and utter misinformation around TTIP. The vast majority of those protesting don't actually have the first clue what they're protesting about or objecting to. It simply has not been agreed yet, yet people have had this position of "outright opposition" for years. Not a position of constructive engagement, which might actually achieve something positive. simply one of outright opposition. That is not a feasible or sensible position. It is ignorance and ostrich-headedness. There IS going to be an EU trade deal with the US. The only way the UK isn't going to be directly involved is to leave the EU - and not just stay on the fringes. And, if we do, then the UK will have to negotiate something very similar to TTIP with the US, but from a position of weakness, because you can bet the US will say "Right, here's TTIP, with the signatures of all of your neighbours on it. Give us five REALLY good reasons why the trade deal we do with you should be any different...?", then sit back and cross their arms while the UK shuffles our feet and says "Well, umm..."
So, if you're concerned about trade deals between global economic powers, surely the most sensible and practical way to express that concern is to be informed about the reality, and to engage with that, instead of objecting on principle? Global trade isn't going to stop because of a few people stamping their feet and saying "We don't like it. Just because."
Getting back to the NHS - bringing TTIP into whether the NHS is "privatised" or not is an absolute red herring. As with "suing the government" - the ONLY difference is whether US companies (those few with no EU subsidiary) can bid on contracts directly. Their EU subsidiaries already can. It makes no difference to the amount of privatisation, or the rate of privatisation.
