“DISGRACEFUL” MPs backed EU-Canada free-trade deal Ceta by 315 votes to 36 today.

Labour called on its MPs to abstain, though 14 ignored the whip to vote for the deal and four — Grahame Morris, Dennis Skinner, Laura Smith and Daniel Zeichner — voted against.

The SNP, Greens and Plaid Cymru also voted against it.

Global Justice Now policy manager Alex Scrivener and director Nick Dearden and said Labour’s abstention was “very disappointing.”

Mr Scrivener said: “It is a disgrace that MPs have voted through a trade deal that will give away control to large corporations and their corporate courts, despite strong and long-standing public opposition to what amounts to ‘TTIP with Canada’.”

TTIP — the possibly vanquished EU-US free-trade deal — would see powers handed to corporations to sue state governments in “corporate courts” (known as investor-state dispute settlement) for any policy that they say could hit their profits.

War on Want senior trade campaigner Jean Blaylock said that Ceta would “put corporate power above democratic rule.”

“Labour explicitly opposed these courts in its manifesto and as recently as last week the opposition leader branded them ‘dystopian’ and spoke proudly about Labour’s opposition to them,” she said.

“By abstaining from the vote, they have disappointed thousands of ordinary people who implored them to take a stand for trade justice.”

Green co-leader Caroline Lucas said that Ceta is “a dodgy trade deal that risks undermining hard-won rights that we have in the UK.”

Ceta entered into force provisionally last September, but parliaments in EU countries need to approve the deal before it can take full effect. It is feared that, once ratified, it would take Britain 20 years to leave Ceta if it decided to after leaving the EU.

Shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner told MPs that Ceta did not offer enough protections.

He said: “A Labour government would very much welcome a trade deal with Canada, a trade deal built on the commercial and diplomatic ties that bind our two countries and that sought to further elevate our shared standards rights and protections and that would lead to increased prosperity and jobs.”

Ceta is “not such an agreement,” he warned.

Lamiat Sabin is Morning Star Parliamentary Reporter.