TTIP is not being decided in secret, it is just being formulated by EU and US bureaucrats and then it will go to the council of ministers and the EU parliament for scrutiny and revision, where most of the contentious stuff will go. How anyone can say they oppose TTIP when no one knows what its main provisions will be yet, is a mystery.

The opposition to TTIP seems to me to be at its core anti American.  They first started scaremongering by saying it would undermine the NHS, when health care has been excluded from the TTIP provisions. Liberals are generally in favour of opening the US market to free trade, this is not to support multinationals but to reduce their stranglehold on trade. Over 90% of  international trade is between large multinationals because they are the only ones with the resources to overcome the trade barriers.

TTIP will open up the US market to smaller UK exporters which must be a good thing. This must surely be a good thing.

The element of TTIP that the Americans want to put in that is most contentious is ISDS “ investor state dispute settlement” whereby a company can sue a government for damaging its profits through policies that are contrary to the TTIP agreement.

I can’t see these getting into the final agreement and certainly not without being watered down quite heavily.

Lets see what the negotiations come up with first before trying to stop it in its tracks.

For more information have a look at Catherine Bearder MEP web.