SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
U.K. Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn holds redacted copies of the Department for International Trade's U.K.-U.S. Trade and Investment Working Group report following a speech about the National Health Service in Westminster, London. (Photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA Images via Getty Images)
'Their Secret Agenda Today Is Exposed': Corbyn Says Leaked Trade Docs Show Tory Plan to Privatize NHS With Trump's Help
The U.K. Labour leader said the move, if successful, "could lead to runaway privatization of our health service."
Nov 26, 2019
U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Wednesday unveiled over 450 pages of leaked documents that he said expose British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's effort to open up the National Health Service to corporate exploitation in trade negotiations with U.S. President Donald Trump.
During a press conference, Corbyn said the Trump administration's negotiators are "demanding" that the NHS be put "on the table" in talks over a possible post-Brexit trade pact between the U.S. and U.K.
"We will never let Donald Trump get his hands on our NHS. Because our NHS is not for sale."
--Jeremy Corbyn, U.K. Labour Leader
"That could lead to runaway privatization of our health service," said Corbyn. "Mega-corporations see Johnson's alliance with Trump as a chance to make billions from the illness and sickness of people in this country. And if the Conservatives have their way and this deal goes forward, the changes I've revealed will be almost irreversible."
The documents Corbyn presented Wednesday were unredacted government records from six rounds of U.S.-U.K. trade talks spanning from July 2017 to July 2019.
Corbyn said the official documents discredit Johnson's insistence that the NHS is not on the table in the trade negotiations with the Trump White House.
"These uncensored documents leave Boris Johnson's denials in absolute tatters," Corbyn said. "Voters need to ask themselves some very serious questions. Is the NHS safe in Boris Johnson's hands? We've now got evidence that under Boris Johnson, the NHS is on the table and will be up for sale. They tried to cover it up. Their secret agenda today is exposed."
Watch:
Corbyn's press conference came just weeks after the U.K.'s Channel 4--citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the ongoing trade negotiations--reported that the "U.S. government and its powerful pharmaceutical industry want the NHS to pay more for their medicines which are much more expensive across the Atlantic."
"They want to remove the U.K.'s ability to block American drugs not deemed 'value for money' and restrict our powers to allow cheaper alternatives to be prescribed to patients which save the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds a year," Channel 4 reported.
Nick Dearden, director of U.K.-based advocacy group Global Justice Now, said in a statement that the documents obtained by the Labour Party "clearly show the British negotiators being bullied by Trump's administration, and Boris Johnson dancing to the tune of U.S. big business."
"The U.S. is demanding damaging changes to the British economy which threaten our public services like the NHS, our food standards and farmer livelihoods, our access to new cancer medicines, and our ability to tackle climate change," said Dearden. "U.S. officials are damning about parliamentary scrutiny over safety standards and are even trying to dictate what positions Britain can take in international fora."
Johnson has repeatedly denied that the NHS is on the chopping block. "Our NHS will never be for sale," the British prime minister tweeted earlier this month.
"This did not age well," Corbyn said of Johnson's tweet following the press conference Wednesday.
"So for the want of any doubt, let me give this reassurance," Corbyn said Wednesday. "Labour will never ever treat our NHS as a bargaining chip in trade talks with anybody. We will never let Donald Trump get his hands on our NHS. Because our NHS is not for sale."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Wednesday unveiled over 450 pages of leaked documents that he said expose British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's effort to open up the National Health Service to corporate exploitation in trade negotiations with U.S. President Donald Trump.
During a press conference, Corbyn said the Trump administration's negotiators are "demanding" that the NHS be put "on the table" in talks over a possible post-Brexit trade pact between the U.S. and U.K.
"We will never let Donald Trump get his hands on our NHS. Because our NHS is not for sale."
--Jeremy Corbyn, U.K. Labour Leader
"That could lead to runaway privatization of our health service," said Corbyn. "Mega-corporations see Johnson's alliance with Trump as a chance to make billions from the illness and sickness of people in this country. And if the Conservatives have their way and this deal goes forward, the changes I've revealed will be almost irreversible."
The documents Corbyn presented Wednesday were unredacted government records from six rounds of U.S.-U.K. trade talks spanning from July 2017 to July 2019.
Corbyn said the official documents discredit Johnson's insistence that the NHS is not on the table in the trade negotiations with the Trump White House.
"These uncensored documents leave Boris Johnson's denials in absolute tatters," Corbyn said. "Voters need to ask themselves some very serious questions. Is the NHS safe in Boris Johnson's hands? We've now got evidence that under Boris Johnson, the NHS is on the table and will be up for sale. They tried to cover it up. Their secret agenda today is exposed."
Watch:
Corbyn's press conference came just weeks after the U.K.'s Channel 4--citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the ongoing trade negotiations--reported that the "U.S. government and its powerful pharmaceutical industry want the NHS to pay more for their medicines which are much more expensive across the Atlantic."
"They want to remove the U.K.'s ability to block American drugs not deemed 'value for money' and restrict our powers to allow cheaper alternatives to be prescribed to patients which save the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds a year," Channel 4 reported.
Nick Dearden, director of U.K.-based advocacy group Global Justice Now, said in a statement that the documents obtained by the Labour Party "clearly show the British negotiators being bullied by Trump's administration, and Boris Johnson dancing to the tune of U.S. big business."
"The U.S. is demanding damaging changes to the British economy which threaten our public services like the NHS, our food standards and farmer livelihoods, our access to new cancer medicines, and our ability to tackle climate change," said Dearden. "U.S. officials are damning about parliamentary scrutiny over safety standards and are even trying to dictate what positions Britain can take in international fora."
Johnson has repeatedly denied that the NHS is on the chopping block. "Our NHS will never be for sale," the British prime minister tweeted earlier this month.
"This did not age well," Corbyn said of Johnson's tweet following the press conference Wednesday.
"So for the want of any doubt, let me give this reassurance," Corbyn said Wednesday. "Labour will never ever treat our NHS as a bargaining chip in trade talks with anybody. We will never let Donald Trump get his hands on our NHS. Because our NHS is not for sale."
U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Wednesday unveiled over 450 pages of leaked documents that he said expose British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's effort to open up the National Health Service to corporate exploitation in trade negotiations with U.S. President Donald Trump.
During a press conference, Corbyn said the Trump administration's negotiators are "demanding" that the NHS be put "on the table" in talks over a possible post-Brexit trade pact between the U.S. and U.K.
"We will never let Donald Trump get his hands on our NHS. Because our NHS is not for sale."
--Jeremy Corbyn, U.K. Labour Leader
"That could lead to runaway privatization of our health service," said Corbyn. "Mega-corporations see Johnson's alliance with Trump as a chance to make billions from the illness and sickness of people in this country. And if the Conservatives have their way and this deal goes forward, the changes I've revealed will be almost irreversible."
The documents Corbyn presented Wednesday were unredacted government records from six rounds of U.S.-U.K. trade talks spanning from July 2017 to July 2019.
Corbyn said the official documents discredit Johnson's insistence that the NHS is not on the table in the trade negotiations with the Trump White House.
"These uncensored documents leave Boris Johnson's denials in absolute tatters," Corbyn said. "Voters need to ask themselves some very serious questions. Is the NHS safe in Boris Johnson's hands? We've now got evidence that under Boris Johnson, the NHS is on the table and will be up for sale. They tried to cover it up. Their secret agenda today is exposed."
Watch:
Corbyn's press conference came just weeks after the U.K.'s Channel 4--citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the ongoing trade negotiations--reported that the "U.S. government and its powerful pharmaceutical industry want the NHS to pay more for their medicines which are much more expensive across the Atlantic."
"They want to remove the U.K.'s ability to block American drugs not deemed 'value for money' and restrict our powers to allow cheaper alternatives to be prescribed to patients which save the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds a year," Channel 4 reported.
Nick Dearden, director of U.K.-based advocacy group Global Justice Now, said in a statement that the documents obtained by the Labour Party "clearly show the British negotiators being bullied by Trump's administration, and Boris Johnson dancing to the tune of U.S. big business."
"The U.S. is demanding damaging changes to the British economy which threaten our public services like the NHS, our food standards and farmer livelihoods, our access to new cancer medicines, and our ability to tackle climate change," said Dearden. "U.S. officials are damning about parliamentary scrutiny over safety standards and are even trying to dictate what positions Britain can take in international fora."
Johnson has repeatedly denied that the NHS is on the chopping block. "Our NHS will never be for sale," the British prime minister tweeted earlier this month.
"This did not age well," Corbyn said of Johnson's tweet following the press conference Wednesday.
"So for the want of any doubt, let me give this reassurance," Corbyn said Wednesday. "Labour will never ever treat our NHS as a bargaining chip in trade talks with anybody. We will never let Donald Trump get his hands on our NHS. Because our NHS is not for sale."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.