TTIP: Why let a thing like democracy get in the way?

German sources are reporting that the European Commission wants the agreement with Canada - CETA - (and seemingly TTIP) to not be described as "mixed agreement", but as pure EU agreements. That means the parliaments of the EU member states will not have a say in ratification.

The reports in the Saturday edition of the FAZ, cite sources close to the EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström. The Commission intends to submit a proposal in early July. "The participation of national parliaments in the ratification of the agreement with the United States TTIP and the "little sister" CETA is one of the central issues in the public debate."

Recently, in mid-May, trade ministers of Member States had clearly stated after a meeting in Brussels that the entry into force of both agreements required the consent of all national parliaments. But now it rather looks to me like the EU is under intense pressure to deliver and intends to answer critics by ramming these agreements through by any means necessary.

It is also plausible that it never had any intent of involving national parliaments and has left it to interpretation for the duration of the referendum vote. It was previously unlikely that the Commission would get involved in this trial of strength like this in order not to stir up the already heated debate about CETA and TTIP, but a remain vote could be well be taken as free licence to do as they wish.

The concern from my perspective is that the EU has previously shown a willingness to abuse legal mechanisms to rig powers in its favour and remove the consent of the member states. There is no reason to believe they would not try it on with TTIP.

For something as far reaching as this, this ought to be headline news and it would be were our media remotely capable of recognising actual news.

There has been a logical paradox on the left in opposing TTIP because of what it does, potentially weakening our existing standards and allowing "unfettered market access" when that is exactly what the EU has done to Britain. Such is the incoherence of the remains. Their excuse for this cognitive dissonance is that parliament will have a say in TTIP. That is no longer certain. It would appear that should we vote to remain in the EU, they will scrap the last shred of democracy in a heartbeat.