The Liberal Democrat candidate for North Dorset, Hugo Mieville has joined a growing number of Liberal Democrats, by breaking ranks to call on David Cameron to use his European veto to protect the NHS from irreversible privatisation. On September 2014, the coalition government’s trade minister Lord Livingston confirmed that the NHS was part of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
The deal, known as TTIP, is being negotiated behind closed doors between the European Commission and delegates from the United States. It is the largest bilateral trade deal ever negotiated and threatens to make privatisation of the NHS irreversible by giving corporate profits precedence over national legislation. Under TTIP secret ‘arbitration panels’ could grant American multinationals the power to sue the UK government if it ever attempted to take privatised health service back into public ownership. Hugo Mieville (Liberal Democrat), Kim Fendley (Labour) and Steve Unwin (UKIP), have all pledged support for the campaign to remove the NHS from this trade deal. Tory MP Bob Walter has yet to sign the petition and has ignored letters from the Liberal Democrat and Labour candidates calling on him to demand that the PM uses his veto to get the NHS out of TTIP. Bob Messer said: “Growing numbers of politicians and local communities want to know :- Why should the NHS be included in a US trade deal ? Why won’t David Cameron use his EU veto to protect it ? Even the local Lib Dem candidate has joined the growing numbers of people opposing the coalition government’s support for an irresponsible action which would make privatisation of the NHS irreversible. “I think most people in North Dorset would strongly object to the NHS being part of an EU/US trade treaty, TTIP. They would expect their MP, Bob Walter, to back the calls to oppose this dangerous trade deal and press David Cameron to use his EU veto. We are all waiting for his response”
