Hot TTIP - Letter to Ed

Had an email from Ed Miliband. All about his £2.5 billion to save the NHS. Plus asking for money and my loyalty. Now how could I join the Labour Party after all they’ve done for to Scotland?

Ed  

Thanks for your email a week ago about joining the Labour Party and donating. I’ve been thinking…  

I watched the Party Conference with interest and the very significant announcement you mention in your email. £2.5 billion for the NHS! I’m a bit troubled, though.  

First of all, I wonder why this level of need wasn’t explored, or even mentioned, in the run-up to the Scottish Referendum. I’d have thought it was hugely important. After all, if the threat to the NHS, and I presume you mean the UK as a whole in these post-referendum days, is so great, failure to secure a £2.5 billion extra cash, or a proportion in England alone, would have had ramifications in Scotland as a result of Barnett consequentials. Why did you keep quiet? I can’t believe a politician with a social conscience would have stayed silent just for political gain.

Secondly, Labour sided with and eventually fronted the NO campaign in Scotland for the Tories. Why didn’t you put a coherent plan, a vision, before us? I waited two years to hear that and nothing emerged. Alistair Darling made much of a Plan B for currency in an independent Scotland. I suspect that was to knock down any answers he’d get. But Labour didn’t even have a Plan A. Not of your own. We had a poorly thought out pink Tory look-alike and so badly presented even the mainstream media rubbished it. Now you talk of austerity in the same vein as the Tories and support another ludicrous military adventure. HAs nothing changed? Have your roots shrivelled so much? No we have clear water at last on the NHS, but wait, there’s a problem with that.  

Thirdly, you have a £2.5 billion plan. Before we applaud the cavalry coming over the hill, lets consider. You may find that £2.5 billion lining the pockets of private US healthcare corporations. Not once did you talk about TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership). You must know that’s on the horizon. Vince Cable is working on it now, in secret, I presume. The Tories have made it clear that the NHS must be part of the deal (other countries have removed healthcare from the negotiations). You must know TTIP sets out to deregulate trade between the EU and the USA and has implications for every regulation now in place, including workers’ rights, food safety, toxic chemicals, digital privacy. Expectations are that it could be finalised by the end of the year, Too late for the next election. Too late for the promises, even if kept, made to the Scottish electorate in the Vow.   

Why isn’t TTIP your top political priority? You said not a word at the conference, yet here's £2.5 billion to pay US corporations who, incidentally, will have the right to sue any successor government if their bottom line is threatened by democratic changes they introduce to limit this. 

Here are the references, if you’ve not been briefed:

• What is TTIP? | War on Want 

• John Hilary’s Paper on TTIP 

• Wikipedia  

• 38 Degrees Petition 

So, you see, I’m uneasy. You’ve just made a promise on the NHS you can’t keep unless you do something now. You’ve made a promise to the Scots you can’t keep for the same reasons. You got in bed with the Tories for what, political expediency, solidarity with the workers of the UK? I think the former, a political quickie and how they suckered you. I think you’ve lost your way, corrupted by the power you once had and so desperate for the fix, you’ll lie with the Tories, the City and turn your back on your roots.  

I can’t join you. I won’t give you money. I can’t support anything you do from here on. I’d say sorry but I’d not mean it. Actually, you should say sorry to a lot of people.  

Yours   

Ed(win)