Daily archives: November 5, 2014


The British government is leading a gunpowder plot against democracy | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian

The more I hear about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the worse it sounds. But it gives so much power and advantage to the rich and corporations that, obviously, our government doesn’t want to do anything about it, and would rather no-one talks about it.

When David Cameron and the corporate press launched their campaign against the candidacy of Jean-Claude Juncker for president of the European commission, they claimed that he threatened British sovereignty. It was a perfect inversion of reality. Juncker, seeing the way the public debate was going, promised in his manifesto that “I will not sacrifice Europe’s safety, health, social and data protection standards – on the altar of free trade – Nor will I accept that the jurisdiction of courts in the EU member states is limited by special regimes for investor disputes.” Juncker’s crime was that he had pledged not to give away as much of our sovereignty to corporate lawyers as Cameron and the media barons demanded.

The British government is leading a gunpowder plot against democracy | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian.