Saturday: Hundreds to protest in Central London over ‘TTIP vs Democracy’

Date: 15 April 2015

On Saturday hundreds of protesters are expected to congregate on Shepherds Bush Common to take part in creative demonstrations and actions targeting the controversial trade deal between the EU and the USA – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The event is one of more than 400 events taking place across the world targeting a slew of ‘free trade’ deals that campaigners say would massively increase corporate power, promote the privatisation of public services and strip countries of important environmental, labour and consumer protections.

When: Saturday 18 April, 12.00pm to 3.00pm
Where: Shepherds Bush Common, W12

The protest in London will start with an open air public assembly discussing TTIP with a short series of speakers, before moving on to target a series of unannounced corporate backers of the trade deal.

Guy Taylor, the trade campaigner for Global Justice Now said:
“Election time is a reminder for what a huge threat TTIP would be to our parliamentary democracy. Politicians promise so much to ordinary people in the UK, but what they would be able to do would be dramatically limited if TTIP was implemented and corporate interests are brought to bear on so many decisions of government. We need to ensure that our democratically elected officials are free to act in the interests of the people they serve, rather than in the interests of corporate profits.”

TTIP has been the subject of increasingly critical attention since the start of 2015. In March a report from the parliamentary Business Industry and Skills committee criticised the government’s stance and called for more evidence. A TTIP vote that was supposed to take place in a European Parliament plenary needed to be postponed after the draft resolution was subject to almost 900 proposed amendments. Despite claims from UK politicians including David Cameron that the trade deal would be critical for growth in the EU economy, on April 11 the German Minister for the economy said that he didn’t “believe in the wondrous calculations for economic growth from TTIP.”

The protest has been organised by Global Justice Now, War on Want, Keep Our NHS Public, Brick Lane Debates and Students Against TTIP.