New dossier 'proves NHS would be part of US/UK trade talks'

The UK's National Health Service (NHS) would be part of any future post-Brexit trade deal with the US, according to unredacted documents released by the opposition Labour Party on Wednesday.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the 451 page dossier outlining secret meetings between officials from both countries left denials by Prime Minister Boris Johnson that the NHS would be excluded “in tatters”.

“We have now got evidence that under Boris Johnson the NHS is on the table and will be up for sale. He tried to cover it up in a secret agenda and today it has been exposed,” he told a news conference in London.

The document covered six rounds of talks running from July 2017 until “just a few months ago" with meetings in both Washington and London, he added.

“We are talking here about secret talks for a deal with Donald Trump after Brexit. A deal that will shape our country’s future.”

Corbyn said initial negotiations had finished on lengthening patents for medicines.

“Longer patents mean only one thing – more expensive drugs. Lives will be put at risk as a result of this. Many out-of-patent medicines available cheaply here are vastly more expensive under patent law in the US,” he said.

He cited Humira, a treatment for Crohn’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis that costs the NHS £1,409 a packet. The same medicine in the US costs £8,115.

“One of the reasons for US drug prices being on average 250% of those here is a patent regime rigged for the big pharmaceutical companies,” Corbyn said.

UK officials had also reassured their counterparts that “the US should expect the UK to be a liberalising influence” and that together they could “fly the good flag for services liberalisation”, he added.

“That’s a green light for breaking open Britain’s public services so corporations can profit from (them).

“Let’s be frank, the US is not going to negotiate to sell its own medicines for less.

“President Trump himself never tires of complaining about what he calls the “unreasonably low prices” other countries pay for medicines. The White House even has a webpage attacking so-called “foreign freeloading” – that’s what they’re accusing our NHS of.”

Trade campaign group Global Justice Now (GJN), which was responsible for an earlier release of a heavily-censored version of the papers under Freedom of Information laws, accused Johnson of "dancing to the tune of US big business" as British negotiators were "bullied" by Trump’s administration.

"Boris Johnson’s position on Brexit is clearly dictated by what’s best for US corporations, even when he knows this will be worse for the British economy and British welfare" said GJN director Nick Dearden.

He said the US was also pushing lower food standards on Britain post Brexit, "including allowing imports of chlorine-washed chickens, less nutritional labelling on foods, and less protection for regional food like stilton cheese".

GJN said the new papers revealed the US offered to help the UK government "sell" chlorine chicken to a sceptical British public and stated that parliamentary scrutiny of food standards was "unhelpful".

The US also wanted to ban any mention of climate change in a trade deal, while US officials threatened UK civil servants that they would undermine US trade talks if they supported certain EU positions in international forums

"The US (is) suggesting a ‘corporate court system’ in a US-UK deal, which would allow big business to sue the British government, in secret and without appeal, for anything they regard as ‘unfair’. Recent similar cases have included suing governments for trying to phase out use of coal," GJN said.