The 2015 General Election is just around the corner, and the party manifestos are out. We have collected together their policies on TTIP for ease of comparison, plus links to the manifestos themselves. In the order they were published…
Scottish Greens
“We oppose any corporate power grabs, like the Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership (TTIP), which will lock-in privatisation. If adopted, TTIP will also increase the power of corporations to influence our health, food and environmental protections and to sue governments over new laws.” Manifesto here.
Plaid Cymru
“We also continue to oppose the EU-US free trade agreement, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. We are concerned that it puts too much power into the hands of international corporations, threatens to weaken our democratic institutions and undermine hard-earned improvements in public services, intellectual property, food safety, health and environmental standards. We oppose any part of this deal that may lead to the privatisation of the NHS.” Manifesto here.
Left Unity
“We oppose the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and oppose joining the single currency.” Manifesto here.
National Health Action (NHA) Party
“Oppose the EU/US Free Trade Agreement (TTIP) and similar agreements as they threaten not only the NHS but the health and well-being of the public.” Manifesto here.
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC)
“No to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and all secret austerity treaties.” Manifesto here.
Labour Party
“We support the principles behind the negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Treaty (TTIP). We will hold the European Commission to account on issues of concern, including the impact on public services and the Investor to State Dispute Settlement Mechanism. And we will ensure the NHS is protected from the TTIP treaty.” Manifesto here.
Green Party
“The Green Party opposes the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). TTIP is globalisation in its worst form, designed to submit democratically elected governments to the will of private corporations. Companies will be able to take legal action against governments that they think threaten their profits. National policies in EU countries for health, environmental, consumer and social protection could be challenged by companies from anywhere in the world in private international tribunals, run by corporate lawyers. Under TTIP, attempts to bring the National Health Service and the railways into public ownership could be financially penalised or blocked; authorisations for genetically modified organisms may be accelerated at European level and risk assessment standards lowered; and regulation of banks and the financial industry would be harder, if not impossible.” Manifesto here.
Conservative Party
“We will push for freer global trade, concluding major trade deals with the US, India and Japan and reinvigorating the World Trade Organisation.” Manifesto here.
Liberal Democrats
“We will support negotiations at the World Trade Organisation as well as an ambitious Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and the USA, which could bring benefits of up to £10 billion a year to the British economy. We will only support an agreement that upholds EU standards of consumer, employee and environmental protection, and allows us to determine how NHS services are provided.” Manifesto here.
UK Independence Party (UKIP)
“TTIP is a proposed EU/USA free trade agreement that is being negotiated in secret by the EU Trade Commission and other EU bureaucrats. There is growing concern that TTIP may compel us to put many of our public services up for sale to US companies, thereby privatising significant parts of our NHS. UKIP is committed to securing the exclusion of the NHS, by name, from TTIP. The level of public concern around TTIP makes it a good example of what can potentially go wrong while we remain in the EU and allow EU Commissioners to negotiate every single trade agreement on behalf of twenty-eight member states, including the UK, en bloc. Fears of what TTIP might contain precisely illustrate why UKIP believes we should leave the EU and negotiate our own free trade agreements again. We find it astonishing that other political parties, while launching high-profile campaigns against TTIP, nevertheless remain committed to our EU membership. Their hypocrisy is shameless.” Manifesto here.
Scottish National Party (SNP)
“We will also seek an explicit exemption for the NHS and Scottish Water, as part of a general public sector exemption, from the terms of the proposed Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.” Manifesto here.
Communist Party
“Protection of jobs and public services in Britain demands outright rejection of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership being negotiated between the EU and the USA.”
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