Urgent - the Trade Bill is back!

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Hi John,

The Trade Bill is back! Next Tuesday, MPs will vote on amendments that will give parliament a proper say on trade deals. This will help protect our democracy and avoid giving the government a blank cheque to slash standards, entrench privatisation and privilege a corporate agenda.

Can you email your MP to ask them to protect trade democracy?

Email your MP

In the past few weeks we have seen the UK’s trade deal with the EU rushed through parliament in mere hours without enough time to get to grips with its thousand plus pages. We’ve also seen some of the dangers we feared begin to happen.

The talks with the EU revolved around the idea that Britain would be able to ‘diverge’ from EU standards. But we know that when this government says ‘diverge’ they mean deregulate – that’s to say, they want to make life easier for big business and the financial sector, and strip away standards that protect us and our environment.

And they’ve already started. We’ve seen headlines on government plans to rip up workers’ rights, the launch of a consultation to deregulate gene-editing technologies, and the Chancellor talk about a ‘Big Bang 2.0’ of financial deregulation. A temporary authorisation of bee-harming pesticides could unleash a wave of chemical deregulation. And a parliamentary committee which would have allowed MPs to scrutinise the EU trade deal has been scrapped.

We’re heading for an out of control bonfire of regulations, and trade deals will be a key part of this. We need democratic control over trade, and the Trade Bill is our chance to achieve this.

Can you email your MP right now, to ask them to support the amendment that would give MPs a vote on trade?

Ask your MP to support trade democracy

There’s a groundswell of support for this in parliament. MPs and peers who have been holding cross-party meetings to work out what can be done to get these vital changes through. But it is still touch and go.

We’re working with a wide range of other groups on this, from the NFU to Greenpeace. Together lets see if we can persuade MPs not to vote to give themselves less power!

Thank you for all that you do,

Jean Blaylock
Trade campaigner at Global Justice Now

ps For more on the drive for disastrous deregulation and trade, read and share our latest blog by our director, Nick Dearden

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