The Mercosur deal is a sell-out of farmers in this country. It is a sell-out on the fight for climate action and the fight against deforestation. It is a sell-out on the protection of workers’ rights. It is a recipe for the race to the bottom and completely exposes the agenda of the big powers that dominate the European Union, which are only interested in promoting the interests of the big car manufacturers and the big multinationals at the expense of ordinary working people, small farmers and the environment. That is the truth about this deal. From an environmental point of view and the point of view of our farmers, why on earth was the European Union negotiating a deal to get 99,000 more tonnes of beef to Europe when we can produce that beef here? How does that make any sense from a climate point of view? How does it make any sense for the livelihood of our farmers? Why would it even enter into a negotiation like that, other than to serve the interests of big manufacturers like German car manufacturers that are willing to sacrifice the climate, farmers and so on in order to pursue their interests? In respect of how this connects with the Trump stuff, Venezuela is temporarily out of Mercosur but if Trump gets control - he now claims he has control of Venezuela after taking out Maduro, whatever Members may think about Maduro – he has made it clear that he wants to undermine all of those standards which the European Union claims it represents. He has asserted the right, under national security policy, to take control of South America and decide the policies of governments in South America. The EU is giving a man who has openly declared a war on climate action and all the sorts of standards that Europe says it wants to protect but does not actually protect a way in to encourage the race to the bottom. I am in favour of trade but it should be fair trade that is about levelling up rather than a race to the bottom. This is about the race to the bottom and it is a sell-out. In the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond’s speech, he is ambivalent. I hate it to say, “I told you so”, but this was the reason we opposed the qualified majority voting in the Nice treaty, the Lisbon treaty and the Single European Act. If we had not given up the right to veto these things, we would be able to do something about this. The truth is that the Government is ambivalent about this stuff. It is ambivalent because it is ideologically committed to this idea of free trade when what it should be committed to is fair trade and protecting the livelihoods of farmers, the environment and workers’ rights instead of selling out on those things.

Sentiment score: 0.27