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    Nick Dearden - MPs mustn't allow Fox free range to negotiate an ‘America first’ trade deal Archived Message

    Posted by johnhol on February 26, 2019, 9:40 pm

    Begins:

    Remember all that talk about parliamentary sovereignty a couple of years ago? Remember being told that a key reason for Brexit was having control of our own trade policy? And that Brexit would mean we wouldn’t have to sign up to any undemocratic trade deals like TTIP?

    Well it turns out it that those arguments were about as much hogwash as the £350 million extra a week which Boris Johnson desperately wanted to spend on the NHS. We saw that yesterday, when MPs debated Britain’s post-Brexit trade deals with countries including the United States, Australia and New Zealand, as well as signing, however geographically improbably, the Transpacific Partnership.

    Or at least, some MPs debated those deals. The government benches contained no more than five MPs. Which is extraordinary given that this is possibly the only guaranteed debate MPs will get before a standard-slashing “America first” trade deal is brought back for them to approve. And approve such a deal they will have to do, because yesterday government ministers confirmed that in Brexit Britain the mother of parliaments will be effectively unable to stop any trade deal, however much they dislike it.

    In a democratic country, Thursday’s debate would have been the point at which parliament saw Liam Fox’s negotiating objectives for the trade deals under discussion. They would have been able to question his red lines (assuming he has any), and to apply some sort of framework which lays out the type of trade deal Britain wants. They would have seen scoping documents and impact assessments, laying out what such deals would mean for different parts of the country, for different industries, and for our ability to protect public services, our environment and our welfare. They would have been promised access to all the negotiating documents so they could keep the Secretary of State on the straight and narrow. Scrutiny committees would have been established. Consultations with the public would have been launched. Devolved nations would have been given a specific say on what they wanted and didn’t want from a trade deal.

    But, as Barry Gardiner, Labour’s trade spokesperson commented: “Today’s debate certainly cannot be considered to constitute that important discussion. It is a general debate on a Thursday, in a week that was intended to be recess, talking about potential agreements before Parliament has even debated the whole process of consultation, impact assessment, negotiating mandate, parliamentary debate, transparency of negotiation, ratification and subsequent review and periodic appraisal that should constitute a framework within which the Government intend to bring such agreements into being.”

    As the SNPs trade spokesperson Stewart Hosie summed up: “Current procedures are such that this could be the only opportunity MPs have to debate four major trade deals. That would be woefully inadequate.”

    Yesterday’s debate was a sham, which exposes the democratic black hole at the heart of Brexit. A hole which the government plans to fill with numerous trade deals which will affect everyone in the country, but which we are allowed no voice on. To be clear, MPs were told yesterday that there was no guarantee of another debate, of a written mandate to guide trade deals, of them being allowed to access any papers, of a proper scrutiny process or of a final meaningful vote.

    Huge public concern
    To be fair, there has actually been a public consultation. It was even accessible online. And a massive 600,000 people and organisations took part. That’s a record for such a consultation, and shows very clearly how interested and concerned the public are by trade policy. The majority of respondents are believed to have raised concerns that these trade deals could change the sort of food of we eat for the worse, could threaten the livelihoods of farmers, could undermine the NHS, and could introduce a “corporate court” system which would open our government up to being sued – in secret – for introducing perfectly reasonable environmental protection, public health standards and improving workers rights.

    Continues:
    https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/nick-dearden/mps-mustnt-allow-fox-free-range-to-negotiate-america-first-trade-deal

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