Brexit: Ignore Labour’s scaremongering – post-Brexit trade deals will bring huge benefits to the NHS and its patients
Need to talk more about Brexit? Well here you go… One of the most frequent attacks made by Europhiles during the General Election campaign so far has been that Boris Johnson will – post-Brexit – supposedly do a ‘dodgy deal’ with US President Donald Trump, sending £500 million a week of NHS money to American pharmaceutical companies. This charge was repeated by Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn in his recent speech to the CBI, in the ITV leaders’ debate on Tuesday and again at his manifesto launch on Thursday. The response to this charge so far from Boris Johnson and other Conservatives has been to reiterate this is an outright lie, and the NHS would “not be on the table” in trade negotiations with the US. Indeed, the attack displays a clear ignorance of the nature of trade and how our NHS currently functions. We all remember the furore and the clamour over the wording used on the Vote Leave bus during the EU Referendum campaign: “We send £350 million a week to the EU. Let’s fund the NHS instea...
