Time for the SNP to make up its mind on CETA
By: Steve Rolfe
Date: 19 October 2016
Global Justice Glasgow, along with activists from across Scotland, were out in force at the SNP conference on Saturday, telling delegates that it’s time to Stop CETA. We made a bit of a visual splash with our dastardly corporate rats and spoke to several hundred SNP members as they went in to the conference.
During the conference in Glasgow, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon made great play of her core message of inclusion. She wants an inclusive Scotland that avoids the rise in xenophobia and racist attacks witnessed since the Brexit vote in June. She wants an inclusive Scotland that will do a better job for previously excluded groups, such as children going through the care system. And she wants an inclusive debate about independence if we end up with a hard Brexit.
Alongside this, she is explicitly pushing for more powers for the Scottish government, arguing that many of the powers repatriated from Brussels should come to Edinburgh, not be grabbed by Westminster. And that includes the power to strike international deals on trade and other issues.
At the same time, however, the SNP is still sitting on the fence about CETA, with its MEPs still unable to tell us which way they will vote when the deal comes before the European parliament. So a government that wants an inclusive society and more devolved power is still unwilling to oppose a corporate-sponsored mockery of free trade that will take power away from the Scottish people, particularly those on the margins of society. A government that wants power devolved to Scotland is failing to oppose a deal which will hand power over workers’ rights, environmental regulation and much, much more to unelected corporations, regardless of whether Scotland remains in the EU or not.
Interestingly, the vast majority of the people we spoke to as they stopped to talk with us before making their way into the conference, seemed to be critical of CETA, so it’s hard to see why the party is still swithering with just months to go before the decisive vote. Come on Nicola, you can’t have inclusion and hand power to corporations at the same time!
