General union GMB hit back yesterday at Tory minister Ian Livingston’s feeble defence of a notorious EU-US trade deal.

As reported in yesterday’s Star, Lord Livingston claimed the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would make British families £400 a year richer and refused to exempt public services — including the NHS — from being forced open to privatisation.

“Far from being of benefit to the taxpayer, the deal would cost £3.5 billion a year in lost tariff revenue,” GMB international officer Bert Schouwenburg said.

“Even Kenneth Clarke dismissed government forecasts of economic benefits as being little more than speculation.”

The minister’s comments were “a vain attempt to justify the transfer of sovereignty from elected parliaments to the boardrooms,” the union said, adding that the investor state dispute mechanism — allowing corporations to sue countries when they do not get their way — was “unprecedented in an agreement of this kind.”