By Clea Guy-Allen

The only reason anyone knows about the Transatlantic Trade In Partnership agreement is because a draft working group paper was leaked to the German media back in 2014, detailing the transnational proposals. Had the European Union and the US government had their way, this deal would have been signed, sealed and delivering bucket loads of cash to corporations on both sides of the atlantic by now, without any public intervention.

The proposed agreement between the European Union and the US, which aims to “stimulate the economy through the standardisation of legal regulations”, is the biggest trade agreement to be formed in history, and yet the general public have had absolutely no democratic say on whether it is something they want their governments to sign up to. And that’s how officials had wanted it to stay.

Unfortunately for the negotiators of the trade deal however, when the original Wikileak was published by in February 2014 by Zeit Online, flags were immediately raised about many of the stipulations which were being proposed and campaigners across Europe quickly spurred into action and launched the anti-TTIP movement. The global campaign has gained strong support from the public, despite, but also potentially because of, the high levels of secrecy surrounding the deal.

It’s so secret in fact, even members of our own European Parliament had to lobby to view the proposed agreement.

Writing for the Guardian, British Green politician Molly Scott Cato, who is MEP for South West England, likened her experience trying to get access to the “top secret” documents as something from a James Bond film, and gave a general warning that seeing the document has left her “without any sense of reassurance either that the process of negotiating this trade deal is democratic, or that the negotiators are operating on behalf of citizens”.

Why, if this is such a terrifying document, concerning the future of EU citizens livelihoods, does she not go into the details of exactly why she’s been left feeling like this? Well. Rather surprisingly, she’s not allowed to, despite being an elected member of the European Parliament, serving constituents of the United Kingdom: “I was required to sign a document of some 14 pages, reminding me that “EU institutions are a valuable target” and of the dangers of espionage. Crucially, I had to agree not to share any of the contents with those I represent”.

It is because of statements like these that the biggest issue about the agreement for many, which is supposedly going to generate £10bn per year for the UK economy, £100 bn for the EU as a whole and £80bn for the US, is the lengths at which governments have gone to to keep this deal from the public. Originally conceived of back in 2011 as a direct result of the economic crisis, it’s taken 3 years for the worrying details to emerge. But why?

The answer to this question is twofold. When trade deals such as TTIP are put forward, it is simply easier for the concerned parties (in this case the EU and the US), as it means they can operate under their own rules and protect their (often very calculated and unflattering) national interests, such as prioritising exponential economic growth over workers rights, food safety or in the case of the UK, safeguarding our NHS against back door privatisation.

The second reason to not hold a public consultation or referendum, like some would expect before signing a trade deal which directly affects a country’s autonomy to self govern through mechanisms such as the investor-State dispute settlement, is because of the time it would take.

Although there have been legitimate concerns raised by campaigners and MP’s alike about the provision for ISDS, which will “grant transnational corporations the power to sue individual countries directly for losses suffered in their jurisdictions as a result of public policy decisions”, and the impact that this could have on public services, the Prime Minister has simply dismissed them as nonsense, even going as far as to say that he wants to put “rocket boosters” under the deal in order to free the markets.

In a statement last year David Cameron said that he believed the anti-TTIP arguments around the threat from TTIP to the NHS were “very weak”, saying that the NHS would not be part of the deal, however, a recent leak to BBC Scotland on the 26th of February of the EU’s “initial offer”, again throws his defense of the agreement into doubt.

Although the BBC reported that the offer includes wording that UK ministers have said will protect the NHS from privatisation, in a blog published on the 27th of February John Hilary, the Executive Director of War on Want, explained: “The ‘protection’ highlighted to the BBC relates only to how US corporations will be treated once they are already providing health services. In the jargon, this is the ‘national treatment’ provision that requires foreign companies to be treated at least as well as domestic firms once they are operating in the local economy. The protection does not apply to whether the market should be opened to them in the first place, or whether we can bring it back into public hands. Any such protection would have to be written into the ‘market access’ column of the schedule of commitments that the BBC has published, which it isn’t”.

It is examples such as this that remind us that although we have a free press in the UK, it doesn’t necessarily correlate to freer coverage of the issues that we citizens think are important.

Whilst speaking to Russia Today last November about the secrecy surrounding TTIP and Wikileaks involvement with breaking the story, Kristinn Hrafnsson warned that the British public shouldn’t trust anything that politicians are saying about the state of the TTIP negotiations without documents being put on the table: “Trusting politicians? Of course you shouldn’t do that. Especially when they are keeping things secret from you”.