On Question Time last night, Owen Jones raised the question of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and its threat to the NHS remaining in public ownership. He claimed that the UK now has an exemption from TTIP when it comes to the NHS. He said the following:

“Because people protested and campaigned here and all over Europe we not only got an exemption for the NHS (forced upon this government against their will) but because people protested and campaigned all over Europe TTIP lies in ruins. Don’t let anyone say we can’t change the European Union.”

I don’t think we’ve got an exemption and I don’t think TTIP lies in ruins. The latest information I can find after a quick search is from the Daily Mirror and The Guardian of 19 May, where a No. 10 spokesperson is quoted as saying that the government would accept the Commons amendment to the Queen’s speech (put by Peter Lilley (Tory) and Paula Sherriff (Labour), and supported, I think, by the SNP), which proposed that the Commons should

“respectfully regret that a Bill to protect the National Health Service from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership was not included in the Gracious Speech.”

I understand from this that getting an exemption would involve an Act of Parliament, so I don’t see how Owen Jones can say we’ve got an exemption now. I’d have thought it would mean some more jiggery-pokery at EU Central too.

At my Constituency Labour Party meeting last month, when I asked a question about whether TTIP was a threat to the public ownership of the NHS, Peter Prescott (arguing for a Remain vote), agreed that it was – but claimed that TTIP would have to be agreed to by all 28 members of the EU and that therefore we would have a say at that stage, and that he couldn’t see France, either, agreeing to this aspect of TTIP under a Socialist Party government. He didn’t mention an exemption. (He didn’t mention, either, that President Hollande is apparently the most unpopular president of France since records began, so who knows whether there will be a Socialist Party government of France when TTIP gets to that stage?)

I’m not clear what “accepting the amendment” means anyway, particularly as the said No. 10 spokesperson seemed a bit dismissive of it: “As we’ve said all along,” he said, “there is no threat to the NHS from TTIP. So if this amendment is selected, we’ll accept it.” So, as I said, I don’t believe we’ve got an exemption and Owen Jones’s claim is, at best, wishful thinking.

I could vote either way in the referendum: there are lots of reasons why I’d like to see us out of this club. I hate what the EU and the European Bank did to Greece (they boasted they’d given Tspiras “a mental waterboarding”), I find the claim that the EU will make it easier to defend workers’ rights (also cited by Jones) more than questionable in the week after the French “socialist” government tear-gassed workers protesting against its proposed laws, which are set to tear up their rights, I hate the EU agreement with Turkey to send Syrians (who are the most vulnerable ones) back to Syria. (This means that every time EU bureaucrats or politicians take a breath they are breaking the Refugee Convention.)

But I’m thinking of voting Remain. Part of that has always been because of the racist arguments of a substantial part of the Leave campaign. But (and this is not unconnected with that reason) a successful Leave vote would also likely result in Boris Johnson and Michael Gove running the government, even more enthusiastic in “punishing the poor”, as Ken Loach described the Tories last week, than even Cameron and Osborne. There is no worse prospect, we don’t need it and we don’t deserve it. So I’m inclining at the moment (and this isn’t set in stone) to adopt Paul Mason’s approach: Get out, but not yet. The time to leave would be when a Labour government is prevented by the EU from implementing its programme (e.g. defending the NHS, bringing back the rail network into public ownership) and then, when it becomes obvious we can’t change the EU, calls another referendum. Then we could leave, heads held high, Corbyn intact.

And that’s another thing: on 23 June, a Leave vote would probably mean, not only the rise of Johnson and Gove, but the end of Jeremy Corbyn. Labour MPs would call for a new leadership election before you could say “plot”, and he would be gone.

And then I would retire from politics!