Cameron Must Resign as Prime Minister (and Pay Back the Money he Owes Us)

(Photo credit: 38 Degrees)

David Cameron has failed to draw a line under his financial affairs, which his belated admission on Thursday, of previously owning 5,000 shares in Blairmore Holdings, the off shore tax avoidance company that his late father Ian Cameron was a director of, was meant to do.

Cameron suggested in his usual arrogant way that the shares worth £31,500, which were sold in 2010 just four months before he became Prime Minister, is a trifling sum, yielding only around £19,000 in profit. This was a joint holding with his wife, and as in 2010 the threshold for capital gains tax was £10,100 per person, he did not have to pay tax on the amount. He also promised to make public his tax returns (since he became Prime Minister).

This type of off shore fund is only available to the rich, and Cameron’s claim that anyone can invest in them is untrue. £70,000 was the minimum amount allowed for investment in this fund, and it doesn’t stop there, you also need substantially more in wealth to be allowed to invest.

But all of this still leaves many questions hanging in the air if it is true what Cameron has also said, i.e. he or his ‘immediate’ family did not gain from off shore investments. Clearly, that was untrue, as he has now admitted. It has emerged that his father had investments in at least two other off shore funds, based in Jersey. Did the Prime Minister ever have holdings in these companies, or any other off shore schemes, since he became an MP in 2005?

Then is the question of his £300,000 inheritance from his father’s will. The Times Rich List a year before his death, estimated Ian Cameron’s personal fortune was £10 million, but his estate after his death was valued at only £2.74 million. Why the large discrepancy? It could be that some was given away to family members prior to his death, including David Cameron, or it could be that some is still hidden away in off shore accounts. We need to know with full transparency about what happened to this money.

The £300,000 that we know about was just under the inheritance tax threshold, which is plainly why this amount was chosen. Of this we don’t how much came from off shore investments. The main reason for people using these companies is to avoid paying inheritance, income and capital gains tax, because of the lack of transparency. This of course also contributes to higher profits for these investments, as the bottom line is reduced, so more is gained in profit at the expense of the British taxpayer.

Cameron says he doesn’t know how much of his inheritance came via Blairmore Holdings, but if we get all the figures straight, which looks unlikely admittedly, then we could work it out fairly closely I think.

We have heard nothing of where the rest of even the £2.74 million (let alone the £10 million figure) in Ian Cameron’s estate. It seems likely that Cameron’s two sisters and one brother plus his mother would have inherited this money. So when Cameron talks about not benefitting ‘in the future’ from these off shore holdings, will he refuse the money when his mother passes on? I very much doubt it.

Cameron’s strategy now seems to be make a showing of his financial affairs since he became Prime Minister, which may be relatively clean, but what about before this? As leader of the Opposition, an official post, attracting a publicly funded salary and of course as an MP before this, since 2005, again with a salary paid by British taxpayers. Is it just Prime Ministers that are meant not to benefit from off shore, tax avoiding investments, or should this cover all MPs? I think it should. It can’t be right to be taking honest tax payer's money, while simultaneously avoiding paying tax yourself, if you are an MP.  

Then there is the story that Cameron has been instrumental in stopping the European Union from tightening up on off shore funds, demanding full transparency of monies in these accounts. How can Cameron be trusted as an honest broker in tax affairs after the revelations of this week? His creditability is shot to pieces and he can’t be involved in making the rules again.

The opposition parties in Parliament are united in criticising Cameron and his own party’s MPs are showing signs of rebellion. As The Telegraph reports, several MPs have accused Cameron of hypocrisy, in that only two months after he sold his shares in Blairmore Holdings, he sent a letter to all Conservative Party candidates at the 2010 general election, demanding that they rid themselves of any such investments. Pro-Brexit Tory MPs are planning what is in effect, strike action over Cameron’s use of £9 million of public funds on leaflets for the Remain in the EU campaign, threatening to grind government to a halt by voting down all legislation.

All of which leads me to think that Cameron can’t last much longer, unless he changes the habit of a lifetime and comes completely clean over all of his and his family’s financial affairs (including his mother and father) immediately. Fat chance, me thinks. Just go Mr Cameron and stop embarrassing the country, but pay up what you owe us first.

TTIP Threat to Privatise the NHS is ‘Real and Serious’ - Legal Expert

The trade union UNITE has commissioned a European law expert to examine the proposed transatlantic trade deal and his findings, for those with legal mind it can be read here.  

According to Michael Bowsher QC, a former chair of the Bar Council’s EU law committee, the secretly negotiated agreement will:

Privatisation of elements of the NHS could become irreversible by future British governments.

Could allow private companies with links to NHS contracts to win higher levels of compensation through bypassing domestic courts.

Could force the NHS to contract out services it wants to keep in house or spin off them off as “mutuals.”

This is the clearest indication yet, that the TTIP deal has Britain’s NHS in its sights for privatising, where health corporations estimate they could make billions of pounds in profits from the health care sector in the UK. What else is left of the public realm in this country will also be vulnerable to the corporate vultures who, the deal is designed to benefit.

For over thirty years the steady march of privatising public services has seen a steady erosion of publicly owned services, as the capitalist system, with growth stagnating as it was in the early 1980s, increasingly seeking new areas of potential expansion.

Private corporations now infest our public services, but as always, the corporations want more. It is the nature of the beast, grow or die, and they have long desired to exploit the lucrative, previously largely off limits, NHS in the UK, to keep profits flowing.

Will we allow this?

38 Degrees have collected over 3 million signatures on its petition already. If you haven’t already, you can add your name here. You might also write to your MP to get them to oppose any NHS privatisation through TTIP.

What Piketty Forgot

Written by Noel Ortega, and first published at Alternatives International Journal

The crisis of capitalism isn’t just about the gap between rich and poor. It’s about the gap between what’s demanded by our planet and what’s demanded by our economy.

By now, it’s no secret that French economist Thomas Piketty is one of the world’s leading experts on inequality. His exhaustive, improbably popular opus of economic history—the 700-page Capital in the Twenty-First Century—sat atop the New York Times bestseller list for weeks. Some have called it the most important study of inequality in over 50 years.

Piketty is hardly the first scholar to tackle the linkage of capitalism with inequality. What sets him apart is his relentlessly empirical approach to the subject and his access to never before used data—tax and estate records—that elegantly demonstrates the growing trends of income and wealth inequality. The database he has compiled spans 300 years in 20 different countries.

Exactingly empirical and deeply multidisciplinary, Capital is an extremely important contribution to the study of economics and inequality over the last few centuries. But because it fails to address the real limits on growth—namely our ecological crisis—it can’t be a roadmap for the next.

Inequality and Growth

One of the main culprits of inequality, according to Piketty (and Marx before him), is that investing large amounts of capital is more lucrative than investing large amounts of labor. Returns on capital can be thought of as the payments that go to a small fraction of the population—the investor class—simply for having capital.

In essence, the investor class makes money from money, without contributing to the “real economy.” Piketty demonstrates that after adjusting for inflation, the average global rate of return on capital has been steady, at about 5 percent for the last 300 years (with a few exceptions, such as the World War II years).

The rate of economic growth, on the other hand, has shown a different trend. Before the Industrial Revolution, and for most of our human history, economic growth was about 0.1 percent per year. But during and after the rapid industrialization of the global north, growth increased to a then-staggering 1.5 percent in Western Europe and the United States. By the 1950s and 1970s, growth rates began to accelerate in the rest of the world. While the United States hovered just below 2 percent, Africa’s growth rates caught up with America’s, while rates in Europe and Asia reached upwards of 4 percent.

But as Marx observed in the 19th century, economic growth did little to reduce inequality. In fact, as Piketty demonstrates, wealth has grown ever more concentrated in the hands of the few, even as the pie has gotten bigger. Piketty developed a simple formula to illustrate how wealth gets concentrated: when the average rate of return on capital (r) is greater than the rate of economic growth (g)—in mathematical terms, when r > g.

Through the 19th and early 20th centuries, according to Piketty, the rate of return on capital exceeded that of growth, and inequality blossomed in the industrialized world. But in the 1950s, this trend began to shift—not because of redistributive economic policies, but rather as a consequence of historical calamities in the preceding decades. During this time, aggressive social, economic, and tax policies were ushered in by devastation and destruction.

With these policies set in place, the recovery efforts after the Second World War accelerated growth, which for the first time in recent history exceeded the rate of return on capital—that is, g > r—creating a middle-class.

A Mistaken Model

This was the period when economists and policymakers developed a fetish for economic growth, thanks in part to Simon Kuznets, an influential Belarusian-American economist.

Looking at data spanning from 1913 to 1948, Kuznets concluded—mistakenly, according to Piketty—that in the aggregate, economic growth automatically reduces income inequality. Kuznets argued that a rising tide of industrialization would at first create greater inequality as populations were left behind, but once they began to adapt to the new economic conditions, they would eventually gain access to more wealth as they became fully integrated in the new economic model—in essence closing the wealth gap.

It turns out, though, that the rich just keep getting richer.

This misinterpretation helped justify a quest for perpetual economic growth and free markets, paving the way for massive industrialization, accelerated climate change, and widespread environmental destruction, while simultaneously neglecting the very issue Kuznets set out to address: reducing income inequality.

In Capital, Piketty rigorously applies Kuznets’ analysis to a larger dataset and debunks the argument for perpetual growth. Instead, Piketty concludes that industrialization without any enforceable progressive taxation has actually created greater inequality.

Piketty thus forces liberal and conservative economists alike to rethink their models of growth. But if growth isn’t the answer, what is?

The Limits of Growth

Piketty prescribes a few remedies. But he does not take into serious consideration the limits to growth. He is a traditional Keynesian in this regard, which may be his biggest flaw.

His main prescription—a “progressive tax on global capital”—assumes that a 2-5-percent global growth rate is sustainable in the long run and, with a redistribution of capital, will reduce inequality.

However, he concedes that a progressive tax on global capital is utopian. So instead, he’ll settle for a “regional or continental tax” as the first step towards a progressive tax on global capital—starting in the European Union.

Piketty’s solutions focus more on taxing egregious levels of wealth concentration than on the systemic conditions that incentivize the desire to accumulate egregious amounts of capital in the first place. He seems to believe that pushing tax rates high enough will deter CEOs from pursuing millionaire salaries, and that this can be done without hindering growth. The first is unlikely, and the second misses the real problem with growth.

Piketty spends about four pages of his 700-page tome talking around the limits to growth, but he fails to adequately address the fact that limitless growth—i.e., consumption—is completely unsustainable on a finite planet. Recent reports from NASA, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the U.S. government’s National Climate Assessment conclude that the planet cannot continue on the same path of economic growth if it is to sustain human life.

What this means is that it doesn’t matter if we implement a progressive tax on capital because our planet will not sustain forever a growth rate of even 1 percent annually. A dead planet will support neither high earners nor tax collectors.

Towards a New Economy

All this leads to a larger conundrum.

On the one hand, we have extreme inequality, where many live on less than $2 a day while others have so much wealth that it would require several lifetimes to spend. On the other hand, we have a climate crisis that has imposed limits to growth, so we can’t grow our way into shared prosperity.

The traditional approach to inequality is to bring down those at the top while raising up those at the bottom. But to what level should we bring people, considering our finite planet?

Do we want everyone to live a mythical American middle-class lifestyle? Where every family of four lives in a two-car-garage home with a TV in every room, and every family member has a smart phone, tablet, and computer? Where they take a vacation to the other side of the globe once a year, and send their children away to a university and buy them a car when they are of age?

Is this the standard of living we want for every person on the planet? Obviously it can’t be—it would require at least five Earths.

Piketty is right that our political economy favors the growth of inequality, and that inequality in turn poisons our politics. But while we should aspire to create a society that shares its prosperity, we need to address a much bigger gap than the one between rich and poor. We need to address the gap between what’s demanded by our planet and what’s demanded by our economy.

At the center of the rapidly growing New Economy Movement are ecological balance, shared prosperity, and real democracy. If we can’t find a way to build all three, then the only economy worth measuring is the number of days we have left.

Thankfully, the New Economy Movement is seriously considering the four-fold systemic crisis—ecological, economic, social, and political—to identify a just transition to the next system. Piketty can show us part of the problem, but he can’t show us how to solve it on his own.

Six Questions for Ecosocialists

These 6 questions are posed by ecosocialist party Solidarity US. I'm meeting one of their comrades in early August in London.

Here Salvatore Engel-DeMauro, author and chief editor for the journal Capitalism Nature Socialism and co-founder, with Joel Kovel, of Ecosocialist Horizons gives his answers.

1. How does ecosocialist politics differ from traditional socialist and labor politics? To what extent does the kind of ecosocialist orientation we need today reflect a continuity with, and to what extent does it represent a break from, previous ideological and programmatic perspectives of the revolutionary workers' movement?

Ecosocialism presents a variety of perspectives that are not necessarily harmonious with each other, just like socialism has never been unified. My own understanding of ecosocialism is that of the egalitarianistic (therefore anti-statist) variant infused with a conception of society as part of a larger, biospheric reality. Through this viewpoint, ecosystems are not regarded as reducible to social struggles and environmental degradation takes on as central a role as issues of social oppression.

With respect to fighting social oppression, ecosocialism is continuous with other forms of socialism and labor politics, but much more attuned to the totality that is a mode of production. For example, homophobia, racism, and patriarchy are therefore just as serious as class differentiation because they are part of the establishment and reproduction of class differentiation within the capitalist mode of production. I see the struggle therefore as having two fronts, one grappling with biophysical environments and the effects of human impact (constructive or destructive), the other with social struggles for an egalitarian world.

2. What role do science, technology, labor productivity and production play in the transition from capitalism to ecosocialism, also in an ecosocialist society after the transition?

Science, technology, labor productivity and production all play a secondary role to matters of social reproduction in the transition to ecosocialism and in an ecosocialist society. At bottom, the problem is how to reproduce society in ways that are egalitarian and yet do not destroy the ecological basis of our collective existence. Understood this way, science/technology must be reconfigured to assist towards such ends but not to be merely reduced to them either; the process of discovery can occur without any direct relationship to social ends. Concepts of productivity and production per se might not be particularly useful in this regard, since the issue should be reproduction, subsistence, egalitarian distribution according to needs [and so forth].

3. Since the self-emancipation of the working class and other oppressed layers is central in the transition from capitalism to socialism, and therefore to ecosocialism, what do we think will motivate these social forces to see the necessity of ecosocialism? How does the ecological crisis affect the orientation of unions and their place in the class struggle? Beyond traditional kinds of demands and programs, are there other demands and programs that might supplement or perhaps supplant the traditional approach of unions?

If there were an answer to this question, we could account for all, or the majority, of workers’ thoughts, life conditions, and much else. Rather than understand the problem as one of motivation, it might be best to grasp it in terms of favorable conjuncture and the always necessary efforts at discovering or making connections and raising consciousness about such connections and, [on the basis of] such connections, facilitating the coordination of workers worldwide. One can be the issues of breathable and drinkable water.

I expect it would be easier to persuade most workers about the ills of fossil fuel combustion by pointing out how many people die prematurely from air and water pollution where fossil fuel combustion reigns. In this sense, concentrating on global warming is not an effective way of reaching most workers and making them care about environmental degradation. But there is a parallel struggle that involves the problem of most unions themselves.

Most unions are pro-capitalist, so the struggle is two-fold, one to raise workers’ consciousness about how environmental degradation ruins their lives or those of their loved ones, while the other is to transform unions into egalitarian anticapitalist forces. Many workers I have met, in any case, make connections between their lives and environmental degradation spontaneously, especially when the link is self-evident (for example, their tap water stinks or a close relative dies of cancer related to asbestos). The task is to draw the connections between health and environmental degradation to capitalist causes. Where there are workers that already make such connections, the task is to provide support.

4. How, if scaling back production is necessary, will ecosocialist strategy remain committed to meeting human needs? Or can we envision continued expansion and economic growth under ecosocialism, as the working classes and others in the industrialized nations have come to expect? If so, how does this differ from expansion and growth under capitalism? What will enable it to take place without an even greater destruction of the environment? If not, how do we ensure the generalized satisfaction of needs for all, including the equalization of living standards between the industrialized nations and the rest of the world?

The matter must be viewed as one of focusing on subsistence and redistribution and of showing that there is plenty resulting from that, since there is an overwhelming overproduction problem. Expansion at this point is unnecessary and is likely counter-productive both ecologically and for many people’s health. Involving people with the technical skills to treat waste, to deal with nuclear power plants, and much else, will be key. Without devoted ecosocialists with technological sophistication, there will be no revolution or transition, and no ecosocialist future (see also response to question 2).

5. What ideas do ecosocialists raise in the climate change movement? Are James Hansen's proposals (for example, advocacy of a "carbon tax" rather than "cap and trade") in some form useful for ecosocialists as transitional demands, or are they simply an attempt to solve the ecological crisis within the context of capitalism? What is the relationship today between issues that can mobilize traditional kinds of mass struggles, such as hydrofracking or the Keystone XL pipeline, and proposals to promote what some might term "life-style" actions (what others refer to as "prefiguration") such as personally using fewer resources, boycotting GMO foods and buying organic, putting a priority on recycling, creating/promoting urban gardens, food coops, and similar institutions?

In my view ecosocialists have gone about the task incorrectly. We offer largely vague and possibly ineffective ideas, especially because the focus is overwhelmingly on climate change (or actually one version of it, global warming). Climate change involves global averages of decadal regional averages. This is much too abstract relative to the everyday reality of most people. We also need scientifically competent ecosocialists, who are too few!

The most urgent task is to find ways of conveying scientific that connects with everyday problems people face in different circumstances. One thing that will certainly hurt the chances of ecosocialist movement building is to speak in terms of absolutes. GMOs, for example, are largely problematic, but treating them as an evil loses sight of the potential usefulness genetic engineering could have, if research were done properly and societies were not treated as guinea pigs.
It is not that a machine or set of techniques are necessarily the problem. It is the set of social relations that are. In regard to GMOs, for instance, what sets of social relations makes for their production in the first place?

There is also the wider ecological front, where the task becomes even harder. The issue is both prevention (e.g., pre-empting GMOs at the point of production, not just when the GMOs are consumed) and addressing existing devastation (e.g., nuclear power plants, minefields, or the increasing number of droughts in some parts of the world). For such challenges to be met effectively, one must be precise, specific, and able to find connections across the diversity of environmental degradation resulting from the capitalist mode of production.

6. Related to #5: What kinds of cooperatives that can be built today might be able to teach us something about a post-capitalist world? What role, if any, should ecosocialists seek to play in these communities?

There already exist many cooperative communities across the world. Some are not cooperatives, but entire communities, as in the case of some Indigenous Peoples. Ecosocialists should learn from them and be of help by providing connections between them, to specialize in some biophysical science as well as be conversant in social theory and radical leftist perspectives. Ecosocialists should be sure to jettison once and for all the notion that European or European-descendent societies are superior. Our role is to learn about, and from, non-European cultural frameworks. The task is arduous and takes many years, but without transforming oneself according what one wishes to see in the future, it is difficult to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

Salvatore Engel-DeMauro is associate Professor in the Geography Department of the State University of New York at New Paltz. He is author of Ecology, Soils, and the Left: An Eco-Social Approach. His recent teaching subjects include physical geography, gender and environment, people-environment relations, and soils. The principal subjects for current research work are soil degradation, urban soils, heavy metals contamination, and society-environment relations, but he has also published on critical geographies, the European Union, gender and ethnopedology, Indigenous Peoples’ struggles, and pedagogy. He is chief editor for the journal >Capitalism Nature Socialism and co-founder, with Joel Kovel, of Ecosocialist Horizons.

Greens Should Join the National Anti-Austerity Protest in London – Saturday 20 June

The People’s Assembly has organised what promises to be a big demonstration on Saturday 20 June start time 12.00 noon at the Bank of England and finishing at Parliament Square at 2.30pm. Nearly 65,000 people have pledged to attend on Facebook. The exact route of the march can be found here.

The newly elected majority Tory government has only partially so far, set out its intentions to continue, even accelerate the austerity agenda as pursued under the Tory/Lib Dem coalition over the last five years. What we do know, is that the following measures are intended to be ruthlessly enforced:

Slash a further £12 billion from the welfare bill – with in work and disability benefits likely to be targeted

Carry on with the expansion of zero hours contracts for workers and encourage other forms of insecure employment

Around half a million public sector jobs to be axed

Introduce more hoops for unions to jump through to call legal industrial action, making it easier for employers to get court injunctions to stop action

The further sell off of social housing which is already in short supply. These sell offs tend to find their way to private landlords eventually and are then let at far higher rents to tenants

Further privatisation of public services and new international trade rules to make it easier for corporations to bully (and even sue in secret courts) democratic governments into allowing free access to profiting from these services     

Talk of raising student tuition fees and taking more schools out of local authority control by turning them into Academies and Free Schools

Whipping up an environment of blaming immigrants for all of our economic problems

I know there is quite a bit of cynicism about the value of these ‘A to B’ marches for being ignored by the government, and I don’t expect that however big the protest is it will change the government’s mind on all of there policies, or even any.

This is typical of this attitude from Class War:

“CLASS WAR will be assembling at the bank of England but we’ll be staying there – in the belly of the beast. As thousand of marchers collapse from torpor and ennui and boredom – and that’s before they move off – CW will offer a clear alternative of radical action. At last you can chose between same old A- B boredom or be part of the largest angry brigade ever. Tough call.”

So, they plan to cause some trouble (non violent I hope) presumably at the Bank of England by the looks of it.

Meanwhile, according to the Telegraph, animal rights campaigners are planning to target the headquarters of Sainsbury’s, over dairy produce from the south west of England where a badger cull is being carried out.

I do hope that any of the more direct action type protests surrounding the main event do not descend into running battles with the police, which inevitably gets the media headlines. Violence is almost always counter productive. Do not forget as well, that the police are suffering huge cuts their budgets too, and some may well feel sympathy with the overall anti-cuts message.

There will be various blocs on the march, including a Green bloc, and I think it is important that Greens have a very visible presence on the protest, to cement our hard won image for being an anti-austerity party, not just an environmental one. Although there will be a presence from environmental and peace campaigners more traditionally associated with Greens, in further blocs.  

The broader aim of the event is to try and draw together the various protest groups, like anti-fracking and ant-war groups into the anti-austerity movement. Indeed, the huge waste of money that is the Trident nuclear facility could be put to more effective use with so many vital public services being cut, which is just one example of a shared agenda.

It should be enough to get people to this demo that this Tory government wants to pare back what is left of the welfare state and take us back to the 1930s.  

The weather forecast is good for Saturday, sunny spells and no rain, so do your best to attend this protest, which should be good fun as well as being in a noble cause.     

30 Reasons why Greens oppose TTIP

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership raises a whole host of concerns in a variety of areas. In no particular order, here's a list of some of the reasons why we are currently against the deal.

1. Because it is not about trade

Traditional trade agreements focus on the removal of tariffs, but as these are already so low between the EU and US, it will not be the main point of the deal. Instead, 80% of the projected ‘wins’ will come from removing ‘non-tariff barriers to trade’ (NTBs). These NTBs are trade-speak code for often hard-won standards and regulations. Greens believe the drive to remove essential standards will negatively impact both regions in a variety of ways.

2. Because the agenda has been captured by corporations

On both sides of the Atlantic, the main stakeholders consulted have been lobbyists representing some of the biggest multinational corporations in the world. In Brussels over 93% of preparatory meetings were with business groups according to documents garnered from a freedom of information request by the Corporate Europe Observatory, while in Washington, the trade advisory system is dominated by industry pressure groups, accounting for 85% of seats. Concerns regarding the risks to the environment, workers or health and safety regulation are therefore secondary.

3. Because it is highly secretive

A year into negotiations and only a select number of technocrats from the European Commission have inside knowledge of the talks, amid loud calls for greater transparency from all corners of civil society. Both the Council and the European Parliament have been left out of the negotiating process, as too has the Congress and the Senate in the US. The original EU position texts are only accessible to the Council, members of the INTA committee and handful of other committee chairs in the European Parliament. No one has seen the US proposals. To make things even less transparent, once both sides begin writing joint-proposals for a final text, it is likely that even less oversight will be granted to EU institutions. Only a dozen or so MEPs will have access to "Secured Reading Rooms" and they will be forbidden from taking notes or sharing with the public what they have read. 

4. Because the people have the right to know

National and state parliaments, as well as and citizens in Europe and the US are being left in the dark too. If TTIP includes plans to change regulations which have been fought for for decades, our parliaments and our citizens need to know what is at stake. Transparent negotiations are essential, a feeling felt by many in the US too. Recently Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is quoted as saying:
 

“I actually have had supporters of the deal say to me ‘They have to be secret, because if the American people knew what was actually in them, they would be opposed."

5. Because the numbers don’t add up

Proponents have continued to use misleading figures from the Commission-funded CEPR impact assessment report on TTIP. It claims that the EU's economy could benefit by 119 billion euros a year and the US economy could gain an extra 95 billion a year - with gains of 545 euros for each EU family. However, the CEPR study goes on to reveal that such gains will only be felt after 2027, and only if a comprehensive agreement is reached, meaning that half of all ‘actionable’ NTBs are removed, which is highly unrealistic. A number of esteemed economists believe political leaders are overstating the positives, which in reality may only amount to 0.05% increase in GDP in the EU. Watch Monitor's report on 'TTIP's numbers fairytale'.

6. Because the promise of jobs is dishonest 

The EU is desperate to find solutions to the ongoing job crisis. Although the effects of TTIP may not be felt for over a decade, it is being oversold as the answer to all of Europe's problems. Moreover, the deal is likely to fundamentally shift the direction of global trade, inevitably affecting existing jobs in all regions. There is no guarantee that the impact will always be positive.

In the Commission's Impact Assessment Report on the future of EU-US trade relations they admit that TTIP is likely to bring "prolonged and substantial” dislocation to European workers as a result of this shake up: "..there will be sectors that will be shedding workers and that the reemployment of these workers in the expanding sectors is not automatic..” According to the economist Dean Baker of the US based Center for Economic and Policy research:

‘Implying that a deal that raises GDP by 0.4 or 0.5 percent 13 years out means "job-creating opportunities for workers on both continents" is just dishonest. The increment to annual growth is on the order of 0.03 percentage points…In addition, there are reasons to believe the growth effect could go in the opposite direction.’

7. Because investors will be able to sue states for laws they dislike

Under the proposed investor protection chapter, the Investor-to-State Dispute Settlement would allow investors to sue EU countries for loss of future profits if a country creates new regulation that could impact that investment. ISDS has been criticised as the worst judicial system in the world, and raises many concerns, including fair and equitable access to justice. Neither governments, civil society or national businesses can take a case against investors under such international tribunals. The mechanism is only open to multinational companies operating in another jurisdiction, and has already led to multinationals suing countries for regulating in a host of environmental, health and safety areas. EU-US subsidiaries operating in each other's regions amount to 75,000, leaving many to believe that such ISDS lawsuits could be come a regular fixture under TTIP, threatening government's ability to legislate. 

Flagship cases:

Philip Morris sues Uruguay over proposed public health regulations
Swedish energy company Vattenfall sues Germany for phasing out nuclear
Lone Pine Resources sues Canada for its moratorium on fracking.

8. Because corporations will get a chance to screen future legislation

TTIP also envisions the establishment of a Regulatory Cooperation Council that ‘would allow early intervention by US and EU regulators in each other’s rule making processes’. In December 2013 Corporate Europe Observatory disclosed documents revealing that US and EU business groups have lobbied for such a formal structure for years. They warn that such a body could result in business lobbies imposing undue influence through privileged access at this early stage of policymaking. Businesses then may be able to influence laws that could impact our social, environmental and consumer standards before they’re even discussed at national level. 

9. Because it formalises never ending negotiations 

It is no secret that negotiators on both sides have found some issues “challenging” in recent months. But many of the most difficult areas could be left unaddressed until after the deal is officially signed. Commissioner for Trade Karel De Gucht wants TTIP to be “a living agreement that promotes greater compatibility of our regimes and accelerates the development of global approaches.” In essence, politically sensitive issues could be worked out at a later date, once the public focus on TTIP has dissipated. A 'living agreement' could also mean that new policy changes could be influenced on an on-going basis without the need to renegotiate the deal.

10. Because it threatens governments' right to make decisions

Whether through the threat of being sued under ISDS for legislating, early interventions by a Regulatory Cooperation Council, or continuous revision of regulations under plans for a ‘living agreement’, TTIP will have an inevitable ‘cooling effect’ on national governments ability to legislate for the public good. International trade agreements should not surpass the rights of nations to democratically make decisions.

11. Because it is already negatively impacting EU decision making 

The EU has already seen the cooling effect TTIP has had on EU laws. Several proposals have been disrupted, shelved or pushed through as a consequence of the pending agreement.

The Fuel Quality Directive has mysteriously vanished from the Commission’s agenda, while in the ENVI committee of the European Parliament, a resolution against the treatment of meats with lactic acid, something that in normal circumstances would’ve clearly been supported, failed due to intense and unprecedented lobbying by the Commission. Proposals on labelling requirements for meat from cloned animals were drastically watered down in 2013, even though all three institutions had already agreed in principle in spring 2011. And recently the European Food Safety Authority issued an overall positive assessment of peroxyacetic acid solutions as a sanitary wash for poultry carcasses and meat, something which a 2004 EU regulation prohibits, but may now form the basis of allowing such processed meat to be sold here. It is understood that all of these issues would have been handled very differently if TTIP negotiations were not taking place.
 

In a recent TV interview, MEP D. Roth-Behrendt from the ENVI committee said:

“Why can a high public servant of the Commission’s Directorate-General on Trade come to me and urge me “please, please, please do not reject this law, let it pass because otherwise the US will not trust us and will abandon the negotiations.” What about this very weak proposed cloning legislation that has been tabled in the midst of the negotiations on free trade? That already shows how things will be run from now on.”

12. Because taxpayers will foot the bill

Under the Investor State Dispute Mechanism (ISDS) taxpayers will pay out compensation costs to multinationals who take cases against EU countries if they feel their future profits will be affected by new or existing legislation. The German government are currently being sued for billions by the Swedish company Vattenfall under an ISDS mechanism, for Germany's decision to phase out nuclear energy, for example. This could become the norm under TTIP.

Moreover, there are a number of other indirect costs that are not factored into the Commission's reports as described in a recent study by ÖFSE:

'Costs of unemployment, including long term unemployment, might be substantial, especially during the 10 year transition period of TTIP. Based on projected job displacement in one of the studies of 0.4 – 1.1 million, our rough (and conservative) calculation suggests implied costs of €5 – €14 billion for unemployment benefits, excluding costs for re-training and skills-acquisition. In addition, foregone public income from taxes and social contributions from unemployment might accrue to €4 – €10 billion'

The study also writes that the removal of non-trade-barriers could have undue cost implications for countries through loss of revenue that has not been calculated by previous studies. 

'Most importantly, the elimination of NTMs will result in a potential welfare loss to society, to the extent that this elimination threatens public policy goals (e.g. consumer safety, public health, environmental safety). The analysis of NTMs in the studies, particularly Ecorys, completely ignores these problems.'

13. Because industry demands are pretty scary

Whether it is the US meat industry calling for the EU to lift bans on ractopamine in pork, hormone injected beef or chlorine-washed chicken or some of the biggest financial institutions in the City of London hoping to challenge new US financial regulations, the corporate wish list of standards they want to see removed under TTIP is frightening. The chances of “levelling up” regulations is therefore highly unlikely, and Greens fear we’ll see the worst lowest-common denominator standards prevailing in the end.

14. Because addressing climate change needs to be taken seriously

In May 2014, the Huffington Post revealed a draft EU negotiating text calling for the US export of “coal, crude oil, oil products, natural gas, whether liquefied or not, and electrical energy” under TTIP. Climate activists worry the deal could lock both sides of the Atlantic into continued and intensified fossil fuel use, impeding the move to much needed renewable energy sources. To make matters worse, TTIP may prohibit state or national support for renewable programs through the elimination of ‘local content requirements’ also known as buy-local rules, further undermining efforts to transition to a low carbon economy. While according to a report by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung: 

‘..greater [EU-US trade] cooperation is not predicted to result in reduced GHG emissions. On the contrary, the most ambitious TTIP scenario predicts an increase of 11.8 million tonnes of CO2 emissions: 3.9 million tonnes in the US, 3.6 million tonnes in the EU and 4.3 million tonnes in China due to carbon leakage attributable to its “less environment-friendly product techniques”’
 

At the same time, the most recent IPCC report on climate change tells us we ‘need to use all available tools and measures to meet the challenge of climate change’. TTIP may do more damage than good in tackling the climate crisis. 

15. Because workers could bear the brunt 

Since negotiations began, some of the largest trade unions in Europe and the US have raised their concerns against the deal. Many believe it could put downward pressure on wages, export jobs abroad and weaken labour rights and safety standards that are already under pressure due to the economic downturn. The EU generally has higher labour standards than the US, who have not ratified six of the core International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions. Thus the prospect of ‘levelling up’ standards for workers is again, highly unlikely.

16. Because public services are in jeopardy  

The further liberalisation of public services on both sides of the Atlantic is a concern for many, with opponents believing TTIP could lock countries into deeper privatisation of essential public services. There have been calls to exclude education from the deal altogether, citing concerns that US companies are “for profit”, leaving the education sector in Europe more “exposed to increased pressures of commercialisation and privatisation” On healthcare, similar worries have been raised, particularly in the UK, that US healthcare giants could be given “irreversible" powers under planned competition rules:

“… the rules "completely undermine" the ability of the NHS to "plan and optimise" local services, adding that a treaty which made it easier for US healthcare giants to secure contracts would further "unpick the NHS fabric”.

17. Because supporting local economies is a good thing

The EU wants to prohibit US states from continuing with programs which encourage support for local economic activity at state level, including the transition to renewables or local organic farming for school nutrition programs. The Commission argues that such laws are discriminatory and act as “localisation barriers to trade.” But we believe efforts to support local businesses are essential for the creation of robust and vibrant local economies. According to Sharon Treat, a State Legislator from Maine:

‘In our state of Maine, which is a rather low-income state with limited economic opportunity (especially now that our textile and shoe factories have almost all moved offshore following NAFTA and other trade agreements), a bright spot is local food initiatives.  Our land use and procurement policies are encouraging young people to take up farming, and developing new markets for farmers to sell their produce to schools, hospitals, and other institutions.’

18. Because the Precautionary Principle is one of Europe’s greatest achievements

US negotiators on behalf of industry are doing all in their power to undermine the precautionary principle, a cornerstone of EU policymaking, calling it “unscientific”. Such efforts by business are well established, as Colin Macilwain of Nature magazine has explained:

‘The term 'sound science' may sound innocuous — comforting, even. Don't be fooled. In policy circles, its use is now pretty-much confined to the determined band of brothers who make their livings trying to roll back government regulation, by fair means or foul.’

The precautionary principle is based on the idea that if a risk or danger to humans, animals or the environment cannot be ruled out in a product or process, that product or process is banned. You need to be able to demonstrate that there is absolutely no risk before you can put something on the market. In the US, the opposite is true - you need to be able to prove that something is hazardous before it is taken off the shelf. This is a fundamental difference, and explains why in the US, asbestos has yet to be banned. In the EU we expect to be protected before something happens. In the US, they expect to be able to sue when something does.

If the US successfully argues that the precautionary principle is "unscientific, ..burdensome, discriminatory, ..unwarranted and create significant barriers to U.S. exports", then we will see our hard-won standards dismantled in front of our eyes.

19. Because a “win-win” deal is flawed

Proponents of the deal talk of a “win-win” scenario for both sides, but fail to mention the global impacts of moving away from multilateral trade talks. Even conservative studies indicate that TTIP could negatively impact many of the developing nations we claim to be helping. Countries in North Africa, for instance, whose fragile economies rely on exports to Europe, are set to see a drop in real income per capita of anything between 2.8 and 4.0% according to the Bertelsmann Stiftung.

Under an ambitious agreement scenario, the majority of other nations outside the EU and US will be negatively affected by the redirection of trade, with border nations like Mexico set to see a drop of up to 7.2%. Internal trade between certain EU countries could drop as much as 40%, which could have serious implications for EU economic integration, on which the European project was based. 

20. Because data rights should not be further undermined

Data privacy is not on the table, but data-flows are covered under the eCommerce chapter.  Data protection regimes in the US and EU ‘are starkly different and unbalanced’, with Europe viewing them as a basic right, and the US as a barrier to trade. The recent NSA scandal and EU government surveillance have highlighted the global need for high level data protection standards. Data flows need to remain outside TTIP until both the US and the EU can deliver comprehensive data protection measures. European Digital Rights Institute (EDRi) writes:

‘Inclusion of free flows of data in TTIP will make privacy an issue to be decided by TTIP dispute settlement tribunals. The EU will lose leverage needed to protect privacy. In addition, investor-to-state dispute settlement may further undermine privacy.’

21. Because consumer groups are worried

Efforts by big business to remove non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to trade will negatively impact consumers, too. NTBs can be anything from more comprehensive food labelling, that identifies where and how food was made, to online privacy measures, to regulation banning certain chemicals from cosmetics, toys and other products. The erosion of such protections are not to the benefit of consumers, regardless of whether costs are reduced or not. 

22. Because our food standards are at risk

One of the most prominent controversies surrounding TTIP has been the impact on our food. The EU are adamant that it will not allow hormone-injected beef, chicken washed in chlorine baths, and pork treated with ractopomine from the US, enter the EU market. The widespread use of antibiotics on US farms is also worrying. Such harmful processes could negatively impact the food industry, as such food is produced more cheaply and at a lower quality. However, US negotiators, at the behest of US corporations, continue to push for these products to be included in TTIP. The agreement could also make it much harder for EU member states to make up their own mind on accepting GMO crops, for example. Many organisations in the US do not want to export its broken food system to the EU, and are doing what they can to reverse agri-industry trends of mass production of sub-standard food. 

Read 10 reasons why TTIP is bad for good food and farming (US Institute for Agriculture and Trade)

Read 'Trade Matters' TTIP and its impacts on food and farming (Center for Food Safety)

23. Because negotiation means trade-offs between grossly different things

The Commission is preparing for give-and-take concessions as part of these talks, meaning we are likely to lose some battles in order to gain wins in other chapters. So although we aim to protect our food standards, nothing is off the table in negotiations. The EU hopes to gain more in procurement, which may mean sacrifices in agriculture, according to Hiddo Houben, an EU official in the trade and agriculture section of the delegation in Washington who said in April:

"We are, I think at least in political terms, going to be giving more in agriculture than we get ... and in procurement we are hoping to get more that we give, because our market is more open today. At least that's what we would argue."

The Greens have legitimate concerns that this approach could see key EU standards pawned off for other gains in transatlantic trade.

24. Because it could freeze progress on new safety standards for harmful chemicals 

Recent revelations by the Center for International Environmental Law and ClientEarth suggest that the chemical industry on both sides of the Atlantic have teamed up to ‘exploit regulatory differences between the two parties to slow regulatory developments at all levels, prevent the regulation of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) and obstruct efforts to promote substitution of all harmful substances with safer alternatives.’ They believe that such proposals could ‘freeze progress in regulating toxic chemicals, create an industry bypass around democracy, give commercial interests and trade precedence over the protection of human health and the environment, stifle innovation in safer chemicals and Impede global action on toxic chemicals.’ Not a particularly citizen-friendly list.

Read ‘Toxic partnership’ A critique of the ACC-CEFIC proposal for trans-Atlantic cooperation on chemicals (CIEL & ClientEarth)

Read NGOs fear TTIP clauses will affect EU chemicals regulation (Euractiv)

25. Because access to affordable medicine is a human right 

Campaigners are concerned that the pharmaceutical industry’s wish list for TTIP will undermine public health policy and negatively impact citizen’s access to affordable medicine. Drug companies are hoping to expand periods of monopoly through patents and other intellectual property measures, while there are suggestions that it aims to undermine regulations set by European Member States to protect public health. Such moves are not in the public interest and will could increase the cost of medicines. 

At a recent conference, Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General is quoted discussing TTIP and TPP saying:  “If these agreements open trade yet close access to affordable medicines, we have to ask: is this really progress at all?”

26. Because corporate law firms are cashing in 

The number of investor claims against states has exploded in recent years, with a few dozen in the early 90s, to nearly 600 cases in 2013 alone. According to Corporate Europe Observatory, this has been great news for some of the biggest corporate law firms in the world:

‘…as the number of investor-state disputes has grown, investment arbitration has become a money-making machine in its own right. Today, there are a number of law firms and arbitrators whose business model depends on companies suing states. Hence they are constantly encouraging their corporate clients to sue – for example, when a country adopts measures to fight an economic crisis.’

We don’t believe law firms should be profiting through corporate attempts to halt a country’s right to legislate. 

27. Because we don't need more deregulation in the financial sector

The EU are pushing for the inclusion regulatory cooperation for financial services in TTIP, a move strongly resisted by the US. US negotiators believe the inclusion of financial services regulation may risk watering down new standards set by the 2010 Dodd Frank law aimed at enhancing oversight and stability of the US financial system. We Greens fully support the Dodd Frank law, and are against attempts to undermine such financial regulation. With Europe edging out of an economic crisis, we strongly oppose the inclusion of regulatory cooperation of financial services in TTIP which at present could only result in weakening regulation and oversight on both sides of the Atlantic. This is not in the best interest of citizens in Europe or the US. At a time when we should be doing all in our power to steady our financial systems, the last thing we need is to expose either side of the Atlantic to more undue risk. 

28. Because our leaders are ignoring citizen concerns 

Although controversy over TTIP continues to build, our political leaders remain committed to pursuing a comprehensive agreement, with David Cameron calling it a “once in a generation prize.”  Hundreds of open letters from civil society remain unaddressed. Calls for transparency have largely fallen on deaf ears, as Members of the Council were unwilling to make the EU TTIP mandate public in May. Meanwhile the Commission seems adamant to suppress public-opposition, as seen with the unprecedented arrests of over 250 peaceful protestors at an anti-TTIP demonstration in Brussels recently, including a number of Green Parliamentary assistants. The Greens will continue to work to hold our leaders to account on TTIP and work to ensure these issues are not ignored.

29. Because resistance is growing and it needs our support

In recent months we’ve reported the growing grassroots campaigns in Italy, Belgium, Germany, as well as campaigns in France and the UK. With so many issues at risk under TTIP, the Greens have made it a priority to tackle these issues head on. But there’s still a lot to do to build awareness amongst citizens across Europe and the US. 

30. Because if you won't take our word for it, perhaps these organisations might convince you

Hundreds of civil society organisations, NGOs, trade unions, consumer groups and watchdogs are also raising their concerns on both sides of the Atlantic. As we have showcased, TTIP raises legitimate and substantial worries on a wide variety of issues that could impact your daily life. Here are just some of the organisations actively working on TTIP.

                       

First published Green/EFA Group of the European Parliament website