Corbyn to Trump: I will defend health service from US companies

Jeremy Corbyn said Tuesday he would not stand for a post-Brexit trade deal that “offered up” the nation’s “precious” National Health Service to American companies.

In an impassioned speech to crowds gathered in Whitehall to protest against the state visit of U.S. President Donald Trump, the opposition leader delivered a series of broadsides against what he referred to as “visitors from the U.S.,” adding “it’s about the kind of world we want to live in.”

Full speech

On Brexit, Corbyn said the basis for debate should not be “how we go forward with no deal at the same time as offering up, offering up our precious, wonderful National Health Service to private American companies to come in and take it over.”

“We will not stand for that,” he said to cheers from the protesters. “We will fight with every last breath of our body to defend the principle, for the principle of a health service free at the point of need to everybody as a human right.”

On the issue of the 65 million refugees and displaced people across the globe, Corbyn implored the visiting president: “Don’t treat them as enemies. Treat them as fellow human beings and citizens of this planet who deserve our support, our sympathy and our understanding.”

Corbyn, who declined an invitation to the state banquet Monday evening, said he was not refusing to meet with Trump. “In welcoming visitors from the U.S., I hope there can be conversation.”

“I am not, absolutely not, refusing to meet anybody. I want to have that dialogue to bring about the better and more peaceful world that we all want to live in,” he said.

In February 2018 Corbyn warned that the NHS was at risk inside the EU with a revived TTIP-style deal with the EU The EU_US trade talks restarted April 2019

Speaking about Labour’s vision for Britain after Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, said:

Both the US and China have weaker standards and regulations that would risk dragging Britain into a race to the bottom on vital protections and rights at work.

“And Labour is implacably opposed to our NHS or other public services being part of any trade deal with Trump’s America or a revived TTIP-style deal with the EU, which would open the door to a flood of further privatisations.

And we are not prepared to ask the British public to eat chlorinated chicken and lower the standards of British farming.

We would ensure there will be no reduction in rights, standards or protections and instead seek to extend them.

A deregulatory race-to-the-bottom would damage people’s jobs and living standards.

And Labour would negotiate a new and strong relationship with the single market that includes full tariff-free access and a floor under existing rights, standards and protections.

That new relationship would need to ensure we can deliver our ambitious economic programme, take the essential steps to intervene, upgrade and transform our economy and build an economy for the 21st century that works for the many, not the few.”

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