THE Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is the long and boring name that's been given to a dramatic corporate power grab that is currently being negotiated between Europe and the United States.

TTIP for short, the most controversial part of the deal is the Investor-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS), another dull-sounding acronym designed to mask a pretty scary reality.

ISDS would allow corporations to sue governments for acting in a way that they feel harms their ability to make profit.

If, for example, a future Westminster government wanted to reverse some of the privatisation we've seen to health services in England in recent years, they could only do so at the risk of being sued for tens of millions of pounds by private healthcare providers.

This isn't purely hypothetical. A similar trade agreement has already seen tobacco firm Philip Morris sue the Australian Government for implementing plain packaging for cigarettes.

Swedish energy company Vattenfall is suing the German government for their decision to phase out nuclear energy following the Fukushima disaster.

The Scottish Government does not have a formal role in that negotiation, but it does have a voice, and they have taken a stronger stance on TTIP than their Westminster counterparts.

The NHS has understandably become the central issue, and I agree we should be doing everything we can to make sure the health service is protected from this agreement.

But this is about more that the health service.

This agreement is bad news through and through, and we should be challenging the danger it poses to all areas of government, not just health.

Renationalisation of the railways is a consistently popular policy.

Imagine the scenario that, after waiting years for a government with the political will to implement that policy, they were prevented from doing so because of the profit motive of major corporations.

The good news is that more and more people are becoming aware of the dangers of this agreement and there are signs that the wheels are beginning to come off the deal.

The French Government has indicated that it will not support the investor-state dispute settlement procedures, with their Minister of State for Foreign Trade saying: "We have to preserve the right of the state to set and apply its own standards, to maintain the impartiality of the justice system and to allow the people of France, and the world, to assert their values."

Scotland might not have a seat at the negotiating table, but I hope that Nicola Sturgeon will use the office of First Minister and the voice of the Scottish Government to make a similar call on Scotland's behalf.

If we do so and we galvanise public opposition to this corporate power grab, we can still hope to stop it in its tracks.