DARREN HALL, GREEN PARTY PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATE FOR BRISTOL WEST, SAYS:
“TTIP is created by big business, for big business, with the prime purpose of enabling global corporations to take more control over how the world is run in order to make even more profit.
“TTIP would scrap rules which protect smaller companies from the dominance of large corporations, with potentially disastrous effects on Bristol’s thriving small businesses. It would also open up the NHS to more privatisation at a time when it is already under attack from government policies. And the creation of closed courts allowing corporations to sue governments when laws get in the way of profits is profoundly undemocratic.
“Supporters of TTIP claim that removing regulation would create growth and jobs. But freeing corporations to act in their own self-interest has been tried, tested and failed. This approach has widened the gap between the rich and the poor and fuelled a race to the bottom. Tax avoidance and zero-hours contracts are just two examples of what happens when you hand increasing amounts of power to big companies.
“I fully expected the Conservatives to support TTIP, and it is no longer a surprise that the Liberal Democrats have bought into a misguided free market argument in order to side with them. The real surprise is that even Labour have been taken in by the lobbying and been dazzled by big business.
“We need a new and inventive way of structuring markets so they work for the common good. And this starts by ensuring governments can shape regulation to support small businesses so wealth goes back into the real economy. The Green Party is the only party willing to oppose the failed dogma behind TTIP and work towards a new economic model which lifts the many, not the few.”