A TRADE minister under Margaret Thatcher shocked Tory colleagues yesterday by warning that TTIP goes “far beyond” free trade and would damage British democracy.

Peter Lilley, who is also a former Tory deputy leader, dealt the unlikely blow to government cheerleaders of the EU-US trade deal in a Commons debate.

Mr Lilley stressed his support for free markets and claimed to be the last serving MP to have successfully negotiated a similar trade deal.

He also said he was “especially hostile” to the 38 Degrees campaign group, which has led the charge to lobby MPs over the secretive treaty.

But Mr Lilley revealed that he had been persuaded of the case against TTIP by local members of the group who came to his advice surgery.

“Of course I’m still totally in favour of removing tariffs. But that is a relatively minor aspect of what TTIP is about,” he said.

“My concern — and that of my constituents who are members of 38 Degrees — may be that we are creating a bureaucratic and sub-legal process that may escape democratic control and be subject to improper corporate influence.”

Mr Lilley concluded: “At the end of the day, democracy is more important, even than free trade.” 

Sir William Cash and Jeremy Lefroy were among other senior Tory backbenchers who supported Labour MP Geraint Davies’s motion calling for TTIP to be “subject to full parliamentary scrutiny.”

Concerns centre on the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, which could see companies sue governments for loss of earnings if they stood in the way of privatisation.

“If these powers are available, big companies will use them to maximise profit,” said Mr Davies.

“And why shouldn’t they? That’s what they’re there to do. Our job is to make sure the public interest is put first.”

Right-wing Labour MP John Spellar, who supports TTIP, branded the 38 Degrees campaign “far-left scaremongering” and claimed the “driving force” behind their campaign was German socialist party Die Linke.

But shadow welfare minister Helen Goodman told him: “Maybe we should be grateful to constituents who have alerted us to this issue. They have triggered me to look into this more deeply and I am grateful to them.”