As I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm a little surprised that the out campaign hasn't made more of TTIP itself as a textbook example of the democratic deficit they complain about. Various people in reply have pointed out that the current UK administration would seem likely to support a similar trade deal with the US directly anyway and in practice it may be other EU states putting the brakes on parts of TTIP, so possibly raising the issue would backfire.

Perhaps to some extent (and, being a citizen of neither the UK nor any other EU state, I really don't have much invested in the Brexit debate), though the situation with the EU -- which has directly accountable organs and many of the same kinds of accountability and transparency provisions that are common in national government -- seems different (in general, more like the US federal/state situation, where overlapping powers mean that there are multiple levels at which an interested party can attempt to achieve the same kind of goal and the can, to an extent, forum-shop for the most friendly authority, but still be subject to the same general type of exposure through the legislative process, even if the details are different at different levels.)

There's probably also an argument that without the EU, more of Britain's affairs would be subject to topic-specific, specially-negotiated-through-opaque-process, deals.

MEPs do have some real power, particularly since the Lisbon Treaty, but in practice that power is often like a veto: they can decline to approve some pretty big deals, but unless there is a credible risk of throwing something out in its entirety, MEPs don't necessarily get much input into the details.

At the moment, it looks like TTIP may be one of those cases. MEPs, and very recently some of the national equivalents, have only been given access to the current proposed text at all if they agreed to very restrictive conditions. Everything else is being done by people who aren't directly accountable to the public, and in most cases aren't even readily identifiable.

This is one of the reasons critics of TTIP will advocate striking the whole thing down. Some really do think it should be thrown out on principle as an affront to democracy, but others are playing a more strategic game, knowing that if the European Parliament starts to look like it actually might flex its muscles in that way, those promoting TTIP will be forced to open it up to full MEP scrutiny and get them back on side before there is any chance of the deal being successful.

Its interesting that that would be controversial about the EU -- isn't that true of many national governments within the EU (most certainly including the UK) -- as well, that the only directly-elected body at the level of the national government is the Parliament, and there are all kinds of other powerful offices and bodies, and the people in those offices and bodies are all appointed in various ways, being only indirectly accountable to the citizenry?

I'd say at least for the UK the main difference is that there is still a real prospect of holding the appointed parts of the government to account at the next election. Technically, we elect local MPs, with all the usual objections about first past the post. In reality, the party a prospective MP represents is the dominant factor in who wins, except in a few rare cases with perhaps an overriding local issue or protest vote. Consequently the PM (the first indirectly appointed role, normally determined by who can command majority support in Parliament) and government ministers (the next tier, effectively appointed by the PM) are still strongly accountable to the electorate in practice. If they do unpopular things, the MPs from whom the administration as a whole derives its power, and most of the officials as MPs themselves, will face the consequences at the next election. (This doesn't apply to the same extent for government ministers who are Lords rather than MPs, but appointments to the entirely undemocratic House of Lords is a whole issue in itself.)

This is quite different to the executive of the EU, where Commissioners sent by member states are infamously often failed but high profile national politicians who are either being given a pat on the back by a friendly administration or shipped out of the way for a while because they're too dangerous to keep around back home. Which mandate each Commissioner is given then depends on the President of the Commission, who in turn is decided through such a complicated process that I won't even try to describe it here. If you as a citizen don't like the way an incumbent European Commissioner is handling their brief, there is no real prospect of influencing them to change it. Even in the face of overwhelming public opposition to some policy, by the time the people have voted to change the balance of power in enough places that either the Commissioner is no longer appointed by their home state or the European Parliament can bring down a Commission, the term of office would probably be up anyway.

By the time a law arrives at the first public comment stage, even in the UK, it has already been the subject of a lot of conversation and negotiation behind closed doors. MPs do not have cameras in their offices and public file servers. Bills introduced for consideration do not spring fully-formed from the forehead of one MP, surprising everyone around them. They are talked about at length before even being drafted.

Discussions in the UN about issues as big as imposing sanctions or going to war have taken place with more transparency than we're seeing here. National politicians who have defied public opinion on such matters have sometimes paid a heavy price for it at the next elections.

I mean, seriously, we're talking about a bilateral trade deal here, not the fate of humanity. Yes, each party has some internal political structure and local variations, but the point of both the EU and the US is to have regulated, harmonious local variations so the whole can still function effectively.

Please tell me, if everything is above board, what is so secret about this kind of a deal that it justifies obstructing not only the public but their elected representatives from watching it develop? For that matter, why should those elected representatives not then block the entire thing on principle, if they are only to be asked to rubber stamp the results without substantial scrutiny or a meaningful opportunity to actually represent the interests of their electorates?

Also, this is getting very tiresome. Representatives have enough time to familiarize themselves with the draft and decide what to vote. This whole "the secret cabal is making treaties without you" is nothing more than sensationalist FUD. Only the negotiations are in secret. As they should be.

I'm not even sure what your point is any more. Looking through your comments in this thread, your argument appears to be that negotiations on international agreements must happen in secret, because reasons.

Representatives have enough time to familiarize themselves with the draft and decide what to vote.

We've already seen procedural technicalities used to set up end-runs around proper scrutiny by elected representatives, in the context of international agreements in the recent past. This has been done both in the US and the EU.

Even if those elected representatives do have ample time for scrutiny, if they have no meaningful opportunity to actually represent their electorates by advocating substantial changes as appropriate, the scrutiny is of very little value.

True or false? "When they are called on to scrutinise and approve TTIP, the directly elected representatives of people in the US and the EU member states will have available to them an effective mechanism to change the substance of the proposal in areas they do not believe to be in the interests of those they represent."

One reasonable process might be having each country send their appointed representatives to negotiate initially, then bringing back a first attempt at consensus for proper and open scrutiny by national authorities. Then you send your delegates back to attempt to resolve any show-stopping issues and prepare final wording. Finally you ask each country's national government to ratify the final agreement. If really necessary, the national scrutiny/delegate negotiations cycle can be repeated first, though if that is happening it suggests the attempted scope of the agreement is too broad to be practical.

This way you would have a chance for people who were actually elected to influence the outcome usefully, without resorting to ongoing line-by-line revisions by thousands of individual MP, MEPs, US senators, etc. You just have to recognise that your delegated negotiators are not sent with the authority to make major policy decisions but only to reach a consensus that all parties can accept on areas where you are already broadly in agreement.

If they aren't able to do that, such that they can come back with a proposal that each country can clearly favour overall with no deal-breaking terms, then again they probably shouldn't have been trying to form such a complicated agreement about such controversial areas between so many different parties in the first place.

Are you absolutely sure that you know how the current process works? Or you just read some articles here and there and concocted the story in your head?

I don't know, and I don't think you do either, because it was done in secret with no open, democratic debate. You can tell this from the fact that many elected representatives who participate in the normal democratic processes are among those complaining about a lack of access.