[Fsuk-manchester] Fwd: Liam Fox wants to know what you think URGENT - RESPOND BEFORE MONDAY!

[John]

Dear all,

The Government has published a White Paper on trade and you have until Monday to contribute to the consultation process.  Some of the threats to software freedom that you may wish to raise with the Trade Minister are:

• public bodies may be prevented from choosing to use free software (e.g. TiSA: Article 6)
  
• the threat to tech start-up companies from criminal industrial espionage (see, https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/trans-pacific-partnership-is-a-wonderful-idea-for-china/article27939142)
  
• the ever deepening lock-in of restrictive patent and copyright rules (see, https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/fsf-speaks-against-tpp)
  
• the transfer of judicial power to corporate courts which by their nature will favour companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Apple (ISDS)
  

-------- Forwarded Message --------

Subject:	Liam Fox wants to know what you think
Date:	Thu, 26 Oct 2017 18:11:39 +0000
From:	Jonathan Stevenson, Global Justice Now <address@hidden>
Reply-To:	Jonathan Stevenson, Global Justice Now <address@hidden>
To:	address@hidden

Tell trade secretary Liam Fox not to shut Parliament out of trade deals

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Hi John,

Thousands of us have been writing to our MPs about trade democracy, and the campaign has been making waves in parliament. Already, more than 100 MPs have signed a motion of support - it's the fourth most popular out of over 450! 

But now we need to step up the pressure. Two weeks ago Liam Fox’s Department for International Trade released its long-awaited vision of how trade will work after Brexit – and we fear it will allow parliament to be shut out of future trade deals. 

We now have a short opportunity to submit official responses to that vision - and the deadline is very soon. Please make a submission to Liam Fox now. 
 

Send a response

Liam Fox is probably hoping that we don’t notice this document, known as the Trade White Paper. He wants to have the power to negotiate trade deals with whoever he wants, whenever he wants, with as little scrutiny as possible from MPs. He has a photograph of Cecil Rhodes, the Victorian imperialist, on the wall of his ministerial office, and his own civil servants reportedly refer to his Brexit plans as 'Empire 2.0'. We saw what this means yesterday when his department admitted it has licensed £1.1 billion of military exports to Saudi Arabia this year, despite the ongoing Saudi-backed conflict in Yemen.

Yet although Fox has his own designs, he's not immune to public pressure - or parliamentary arithmetic. Already in the last few months, our campaign has started to make trade democracy a real political issue.

We've had the threat of chlorine chicken and antibiotic-pumped meat from a trade deal with Trump splashed across the media. We've exposed the massive corporate bias in the meetings the trade department ministers have held with different sectors of society since Brexit. And around the recent party conferences, we saw Labour’s trade secretary call for much greater parliamentary oversight of trade, while the Scottish National Party started talking about the need for Scotland to develop its own distinct trade policy.

If we can get thousands of responses flooding in to the official consultation on the Trade White Paper now, we will show the government that their efforts to bypass MPs will be resisted every step of the way.

Can you take action now and tell Liam Fox not to shut parliament out of trade deals?

Send a response

It was by thousands of us joining together to mobilise our networks at every crucial step that we helped stopped TTIP, the EU-US trade deal. And that's how we can stop this new generation of dangerous trade deals being done in the dark.

Thank you,
Jonathan Stevenson
Campaigner at Global Justice Now

MORE INFO
1. ‘Three Brexiteers’ chase buccaneering spirit of empire in choice of art, 1 July 2017

2. Liam Fox’s 'Empire 2.0' meeting is backed by corporate interests and will ‘fleece’ Africa, say campaigners, 8 March 2017

3. UK sales of arms and military kit to Saudi Arabia hit £1.1bn in 2017, 24 October 2017

4. Parliament to be ‘shut out’ of post-Brexit trade deals, 10 October 2017

 

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