If you want to remain but oppose TTIP....

[WorkingMummy]

...don't forget to sign this petition.

You may lose your ability to do so, if we leave.

https://stop-ttip.org/sign/

[malumbu]

Prey tell us what this is all about.

[WorkingMummy]

I've posted a link below. It's a potential bi-lateral trade deal between the EU and the US which would oblige the EU to remove "barriers" to US trade in the EU (including by lowering the standards of regulation on things like food safety, fracking - pretty much everything). It would open up European public services - including health services - to bids from US coporations and has horrible implications for the NHS and other public services. It would give US corporations the right to sue governments for policies that damaged profit. It would give corporate America hugely enhanced powers over our lives.

Some "Lexit" campaigners are citing it as a reason to leave. I actually think it needs to be halted whether we stay or go (and is in fact a WAY bigger issue than Brexit). I certainly don't want to lose my status as an EU citizen, not least so that I can petition against it.

On balance I favour the regulatory environment in the EU, which is pro-consumer, pro-worker, pro-planet. Or more so than any other market place in the world. We are already in the most progressive free-trade area available to anyone. One of the reasons I distrust the Leave campaign so much is its association with people whose tendencies are more sympathetic to a US-type big business and social environment.

So I am, remain, and petition against TTIP.

http:///what-is-ttip-and-six-reasons-why-the-answer-should-scare-you-9779688.html

[Blah Blah]

TTIP is not likely to happen now. The US won't move on anything, which has turned the Germans off the deal. France are now strongly opposed to it too and the UK have guaranteed the NHS will be exempt. Both Trump and Clinton are opposed to it, so once Obama is out of office, the deal is dead in the water. It has taken 10 years of negotiation on TTIP to arrive at what is proposed now. And to also add that huge people pressure on this accross Europe has played a major part in shaping government concerns. So please sign the petition, the pressure has to stay on until the deal is dead.

[WorkingMummy]

No reason not to give 30 seconds to register your opposition. The negotiations are still alive.

Also, the topic is interesting because would be exiters often cite (completely theoretical) prospects of trade deals with other large markets as a reason to leave the EU/EEA. (I've no doubt that many on the far right would relish that.). Whereas a quick look at what TTIP would be like turns the prospect of a UK-US trade deal as a reason to stay in and keep the pro-consumer, pro-worker free market that we already enjoy. (And undervalue in many cases.)

[Blah Blah]

Yes and the EU negotiates deals as a trading market of 500 million. On our own we would be negotiating as a trading partner of just 65 million. We are never going to get favourable deals with countries like America with 350 million consumers.

China is a perfect point on this. China is now so economically powerful that it can dump subsidised steel on markets, and no-one can do anything about it. When we complained they just slapped a huge tariff on our steel. The other thing no-one ever talks about either is how China has been propping the Dollar for almost two decades now.

Even North Korea, who is supposed to be subject to import sanctions, manages to bypass that. It's newest Universities for example are full of Western and American IT technology and computers.

There is no such thing as free trade, or a level playing field anywhere.