Showing posts with label TTIP.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TTIP.. Show all posts

Saturday 25 April 2015

Rebecca Johnson, Green candidate for H&K will pledge to protect the NHS from privatisation, funding cuts and TTIP this afternoon


A cause the Greens support
38 Degrees members in Hampstead and Kilburn are to present a petition this afternoon outside Waitrose, close to Finchley Road station, asking candidates for the constituency to protect the NHS if elected.  Rebecca Johnson, Green Party candidate in H&K will be there.

The event starts at 3.30pm and is expected to last about 30 minutes.

This is the text of the petition:
Our NHS is precious. Please do everything you can to protect it, including:

* Stopping privatisation
* Making sure it has the funding it needs to provide high quality healthcare to everyone
* Protecting it from US health corporations by keeping the NHS out of TTIP

Why is this important?

Our NHS is precious. We all rely on it to care for us and our loved ones. We want to protect it for the future, and we don't want to see it run down or sold off.

Over the past few years, NHS funding has been squeezed so much that services are suffering. This winter, hospitals up and down the country have declared "major incidents" because they're struggling to cope. And now most hospitals are warning that their budget for next year has " reached the point where patient care is at risk."

Meanwhile, the government is letting profit-hungry companies take over more and more NHS services. At at a time of squeezed budgets, this is the last thing the NHS needs. We want an NHS where patient safety is put first, and where the NHS is run for the public good.

TTIP, the planned trade deal between the EU and the USA, could threaten the NHS further. If TTIP opens our NHS to American private healthcare companies, we could see even more privatisation and a slide into more US-style healthcare. We want the NHS excluded from TTIP.

Thursday 8 May 2014

The TTIP threat to public services and labour rights

The TTIP (Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership) is slowly emerging as an issue in the Euro elections although public awareness remains low.  It is one of those extremely important issues where debate is limited by a combination of complexity and opaqueness.

This hustings should help shed light on the issue:

Take Back the Power
Global Justice and the European Elections

Monday 19 May, 7pm 
Small Hall, Friends Meeting House, 173-177 Euston Rd,

Come and meet your MEP candidates and question them on their commitment to trade justice.

•        Jean Lambert, Green Party
•        Jonathan Fryer, Liberal Democrats
•        Seb Dance, Labour Party
•        Glyn Chambers, Conservative Party
•        Tbc, UKIP (invited)

Chair: John Hilary, Executive Director, War on Want 

On Thursday 22nd May, we will be voting for candidates to represent us in the European Parliament. Europe takes decisions on important global issues, including trade.

A major trade deal - the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) - is currently being negotiated between the USA and the EU. New corporate trade deals like this threaten to increase global inequality, undermine democracy and hand public service provision to multinational companies. 

•        What effect will this deal have on our lives here in the UK? 

•        How can we ensure that this deal prioritises human rights, environmental protection and labour standards?

•        How can we ensure transparency and accountability in the negotiation of these deals?

Meet your European Parliamentary election candidates and hear what they have to say on these issues and what they will do to address them, if elected on 22 May.

Organised by North and East London World Development Movement
Join the Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/655635101157740
Contact nandelondonwdm@gmail.com to find out more
Web: www.groups.wdm.org.uk/northandeastlondon

Keith Taylor, Green MEP for the  South East published a detailed report on the TTIP two months ago and I include it here for readers: