‘Plot against NHS & country’: Corbyn accuses BoJo of planning to ‘sell-off’ healthcare in UK-US post-Brexit trade talks docs
by RT
‘Plot against NHS & country’: Corbyn accuses BoJo of planning to ‘sell-off’ healthcare in UK-US post-Brexit trade talks docs
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has accused PM Boris Johnson of a “cover up” as he produced what he says is evidence of not only a “plot against our NHS,” but a “plot against our country” in a UK-US post-Brexit trade talks dossier.
Addressing the UK media in a press conference in London on Wednesday, Corbyn held aloft the redacted documents of trade negotiations between the UK and the US that have been taking place up until the last couple of months. He suggested that it was Johnson’s attempt to blindside the British public over the future of the NHS.
The Labour leader then unveiled the full unredacted 451-page dossier he says he obtained himself. Corbyn claims that the documents prove without doubt that the UK’s public healthcare system is on the table in a Tory Brexit deal with President Donald Trump’s United States.
This isn’t just a plot against our NHS, it’s a plot against our country.
The Labour leader boldly claimed: “Now we know direct from the secret reports they never wanted you to see” that a Conservative Brexit in partnership with Trump’s America would lead to runaway privatization in the NHS.
Corbyn asserted that the documents related to six rounds of talks between US and UK officials and related to key issues such as drug pricing – which are often higher in the US. The Labour leader highlighted the issue of patents around “NHS access to generic drugs… will be a key consideration in talks.”
One line in particular, which has been going viral on Twitter, is the part where the US talk about the opportunities in a ‘no-deal’ Brexit situation, insisting that in such a scenario “there would be all to play for.”
Corbyn also claimed that the papers show US officials want “total market access” as the baseline for any post-Brexit trade talks.
Johnson has rejected Corbyn’s claims that the NHS will be on the table during trade negotiations with the US under his administration post-Brexit. “I can give you an absolute cast iron guarantee that this is a complete diversion that the NHS under no circumstances will be on the table for negotiation for sale,” Johnson told ITV News.
