THE trade agreement passed today “hardwires Thatcherite economics into Britain’s permanent agreement with the EU,” Labour’s No Holding Back initiative warned today.

In an analysis of the deal released just ahead of the vote, Labour MPs Ian Lavery and Jon Trickett and councillor and former MP Laura Smith said the “whole agreement amounts to market triumphalism,” noting that it defines its own objective as “the free movement of capital and payments related to transactions liberalised under this agreement.”

Any economic damage consequent on the deal will hit the poorest hardest, they argue – while measures required to stop it doing so, such as “a huge financial aid package to Britain’s struggling regions, a campaign to drive up productivity across industry, including direct intervention to build new industries [and] the refinancing of our public services” appear to be ruled out in the text of the agreement.