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From: | John Rooke |
Subject: | [Fsuk-manchester] CETA: Joint letter to Manchester Evening News, URGENT |
Date: | Tue, 1 Nov 2016 20:15:46 +0000 |
User-agent: | Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Icedove/45.4.0 |
It has been proposed that we sign this letter to MEN regarding CETA. Please read and comment. IT IS INTENDED TO SEND THE LETTER TONIGHT. We
write as Mancunians concerned with economic justice and fairness,
defending human and employment rights, promote peace,
preserving our planet and deepening democracy in our city,
region, and the UK.
Our organisations are not party-political and we welcome
all those who espouse our goals.
We are pro-trade and want a just entrepreneurial
economy- businesses that are just and sustainable,
bringing jobs, security and enhancing our environment.
We
are concerned about the denial of public and political
engagement in formulating the trade rules that will shape
our lives and that of our children for the next generation
and beyond. The contentious EU/Canadian Comprehensive
Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) which dominated
international economic news last week when the Belgium
regional government of Wallonia refused to sell out their
farmers, and food and environment standards has been
pushed forward by the theatrical signing of massive
documents by the Canadian PM and EU leaders on Sunday.
This
high theatre was propaganda and “inertia selling”. We
still have to ratify it.
This
is not simply a “Brexit issue”- we appreciate there are no
simple answers and demonisation of others is unhelpful and
wrong. We are grateful that belatedly International Trade
Secretary Liam Fox has conceded Parliament should consider
it in depth.
We
are very concerned that the public media give little
attention to questioning voices, despite the fact that
across the political spectrum and across the Atlantic people
are protesting.Over half a million in the UK are among
3,500,000 Europeans who have rejected CETA and it’s EU/US
equivalent TTIP.
Well
over a thousand people in Manchester have petitioned the
Council to join more than 2000 “TTIP and CETA Free Zones”
across Europe.
Trade
is Manchester’s life-blood and CETA is no less an issue
than Brexit for our future. Businesses, workers,
environmentalists, politicians and us all need to be heard
and to listen to each other. The secret lobbying,
suspicion of privilage, unsubstantiated assertion and
rumours need to be exposed.
What's
more is that signing up to CETA risks undermining Greater
Manchester’s ability to make decisions about our future.
CETA covers important decisions about setting rules around
local government procurement and would make it more
difficult to undo previous privatisations, such as parts
of the NHS. Given the negative impacts that this change in
legislation will have in a time when the Greater
Manchester is pushing for greater powers through the
devolution deal, particularly around the NHS and the
potential of joint commissioning of projects, it is
shocking that this issue has not been given adequate
attention.
We
appeal to the MEN to report widely and facilitate
extensive examination and responsible public dialogue in
this area. As Mancunians in the Victorian era
appreciated: we owe it to our children as well as
ourselves.
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