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Melinda St. Louis: TTIP is a bigger issue in America because the NAFTA agreement devastated the middle class of the United States, and people recognize that TTIP is a very similar thing. There’s a large coalition of people going under the banner of the Citizen’s Trade Campaign, which includes family farmers, trade unions, faith groups, etc., who have been mobilizing to educate people on the dangers of this failed neoliberal trade model.What brought you over to the UK?
I came over to England to give a speaking tour in order to stress that this issue isn’t America vs. the EU; this is people around the globe standing up against the largest companies in the world.

Nick Dearden: TTIP is part of a massive trade offensive that's going to hand over massive amounts of power to corporations to rule over our society. It's the worst corporate offensive we’ve seen for 20 years. Four months ago nobody had heard of the agreement; now, we’ve reached the stage where people from across the political spectrum are getting involved. It chimes with a feeling people have that our democracy is being taken away from us.
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Pro-TTIP groups are definitely feeling the heat. I think that’s partly why they came out yesterday and said the National Health Service would be exempted—not that we believe them. They're starting to feel that they need to justify themselves now.Where do you go from here?
I really see this as the beginning of the next big push against corporate power, and I hope by beating TTIP we can give back activists the idea that they can win. However, there’s still so much work to be done because there are agreements lined up behind TTIP called the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Trade In Services Agreement.Thanks, Nick.

This agreement should be a huge deal for everyone. It would make re-nationalizing industries like the railways impossible and decimate our NHS. Can you imagine having our country sued for loss of profits? The thought of it makes me sick.What more needs to be done?
We only have a very short space of time to raise awareness—in six months it will be too late. We need to force politicians to take notice. It’s shocking that Labor are still keeping quiet about TTIP, it should be the perfect issue for them.What do you make of today’s protests?
It’s encouraging to see so many people out here today, but even if we beat TTIP you know the fat cats are going to keep coming back for more, especially when we’re in such a protracted recession. I think our side needs to do a lot more to stop them in the long run.
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TTIP will give big pharmaceutical companies more power to charge us more money for drugs. At the moment the NHS survives off generic drugs, which saves us around $34 billion a year. But TTIP will give companies the ability to extend patents, meaning generic forms of drugs can’t be produced.Not being able to afford health care in America is the number-one cause of bankruptcy, and we don’t want that to be the case here. Our main concern, though, is that TTIP will set the global standard for all future free trade agreements. This means countries in the global south, which already have limited health budgets, will have to abide by these strict patenting rules if they want to trade. For most people living in developing countries the price of healthcare won’t be an issue of bankruptcy, it will be an issue of life and death.

What media coverage? That’s the whole problem. There's been no media coverage worth anything on TTIP. Most major newspapers are offshore in some form or another, and so they are the corporations who seek to benefit. They clearly have no interest in promoting democracy.Do you think the complexity of the issues might also be a factor?
If Nigel Farage can go around talking about sovereignty and win over masses of voters, we can get the message out. This isn’t complicated; it’s simple—democracy is the most important thing, and TTIP puts it in danger.
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The four main political groups in the European Parliament aren’t willing to establish their positions at the start of the new parliament, and I think that’s because there are one or two parties that might be wobbling. They are really concerned about the way public opinion is moving in certain countries, in particular more socialist countries. A lot of countries are also concerned about transparency and what this deal is really going to mean for their public services. I think there’s going to be a lot more internal discussion going on because of the movements all over the world.Thanks, Jean.Follow Alex Horne on Twitter here and Lily Rose Thomas here.