EU's not the only attack on Britain's democracy

It's not just the EC but international trade law set by the WTO that dictate the privatisation and marketisation of public services.

The General Agreement on Trade in Services (Gats) article 1.3 says the WTO can rule on services provided on a "commercial basis" or those supplied "in competition with one or more service suppliers."

A WTO committee has argued for an interpretation that could bring all public services under GATS and be settled by a WTO disputes panel.

These WTO agreements also call for universal public services to break up trade restrictive public-provider monopolies and substitute commercial competition.

WTO rules already require member states to apply such rules to the telecom industry and the WTO secretariat calls for similar tests to apply across all public services including health care.

Gats article 6.4 will force governments to open up their public services to foreign investors and markets.

It requires member states to show that they are not employing trade-restrictive policies and outlaws the use of anti-competitive non-market mechanisms - making national governments' domestic policies subject to WTO rules.

As a result Britain is subject to the neoliberal economic agenda set by the diktat of global governance of the WTO, IMF and World Bank based in the US.

Jones's letter is therefore misleading and gives the impression that if Britain left the EU we could legally follow either a Keynesian model of welfare capitalism or attempt to build a socialist economic and political model in Britain, which isn't the case.

Andrew Robinson
Peterborough