BUSINESS leaders showed signs yesterday of cracking under the weight of grassroots campaigns against parasitic international trade plan TTIP as they gathered in Brussels to try and harass ministers into signing.

A posse of fat cats from across Europe penned a joint open letter calling for EU leaders to “step up the pressure” and push through the unpopular US-EU deal, which would allow companies to sue national governments if they refuse to flog off public services, including the NHS.

And their plea came as shady business lobbyists launched a glad-handing campaign with European prime ministers in Brussels, aiming to persuade them to sell their electorates down the river.

In a letter to the Financial Times, bosses’ club CBI chief executive John Cridland joined European counterparts to say: “TTIP has been subject to heated debate over the past year.

“It is our collective responsibility to make sure this debate is based on facts and hard evidence alone.”

But War on Want executive director John Hilary told the Star: “It is laughable that the CBI is calling for a ‘factual debate’ on the benefits of TTIP when it’s happy to bandy around bogus figures as to what the agreement will bring.

“We have now seen that TTIP will cost us at least 600,000 jobs in Europe alone.

“The only people who stand to gain from TTIP are the big businesses the CBI represents. For everyone else TTIP is a disaster.”

The trade deal has prompted a wave of protest across Europe. 

Even the Financial Times acknowledged in a news report yesterday that trade union and social media campaigns had “had an impact on policy in Europe” — causing governments to ask for assurances and delay the implementation of the treaty.

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey called for Tory Prime Minister David Cameron to honour his many pledges and “come out fighting for the NHS” by vetoing the deal. 

“David Cameron is putting the interests of US corporations ahead of voters,” he said. 

“There is no point saying leave it in and it will be alright — the only way to protect the NHS from this trade deal is to remove it.”

Lib Dem deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg attempted to tread a careful line over TTIP yesterday, saying he would not endorse the deal unless it was “crystal clear that we are allowed to do what we want with our public services.”

But Labour MEP Jude Kirton-Darling said her party would not take this promise at face value.

“If we don’t get a concrete change in the government stance then this is just more empty promises and hot air from Nick Clegg,” she said.

“I worry that he’s just made this pledge to distance himself from the Tories in the run-up to the general election.”