Health secretary accuses some of 27 EU member states ‘lined up against us’ of wanting Britain to fail in negotiations

A bad deal on Brexit would be “a disaster” for the NHS, Jeremy Hunt has said, as he claimed the European commission was deliberately interfering in the general election to undermine the Conservatives.

Ramping up the rhetoric of Theresa May, who last week accused the commission of leaking an unflattering account of talks at Downing Street to disrupt the election, the health secretary said a good Brexit agreement was vital for the health service.

“We’ve got 27 countries lined up against us,” Hunt told BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show. “Some of them appear to think that for the EU to survive, Britain must fail.”

He said of the impact on the NHS: “If we don’t get a good Brexit outcome and we don’t protect the economic recovery, the jobs that so many people depend on, whose taxes pay for the NHS, if we get a bad Brexit outcome, that would be a disaster for the NHS.”

However, when pressed on the issue, Hunt refused to specify what sort of bad deal this may involve, or to say whether the UK leaving the EU without an agreement and defaulting to World Trade Organisation tariffs would also affect the NHS.

“We’ve been very clear that no deal is better than a bad deal,” he said. “I’m saying that a good deal would be best for the NHS, but obviously a bad deal would be the worst possible outcome for all our public services. It would be bad for the country.”

On Wednesday, May used an address outside No 10 launching the election campaign to allege that the commission had sought to influence the vote.

“The European commission’s negotiating stance has hardened. Threats against Britain have been issued by European politicians and officials. All of these acts have been deliberately timed to affect the result of the general election,” she said.

May did not specify who this interference was intended to assist. But pushed on the matter, Hunt said he assumed the commission wanted to undermine the Conservatives, and did not challenge the idea that this was intended to help Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party.

“Well, you’ll have to ask them why they chose to do that, but I think the answer is very clear that they are trying to leak reports that undermine Theresa May’s position,” he said, when asked who the commission favoured.



Questioned specifically on whether the aim had been to harm the Conservatives, he said: “That must be the presumption, and what we’re saying is that they should not be doing that, because it’s an election for the British people to decide.”

The pro-remain Conservative Anna Soubry said the enmity between the government and Brussels should not be overblown.

“Look, these are opening salvos,” she told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme. “It’s like those boxers, they do all that stuff before they actually get in the ring.

“Honestly, I think this is just a bit of puff, and we are in a general election. I wouldn’t have used those terms, but the prime minister is getting out there, she wants to win well. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

May’s accusation baffled Brussels, where the commission’s chief spokesman, Margaritis Schinas, dismissed the claims as electioneering.

“We here in Brussels are very busy, rather busy, with our policy work,” he said. “We have enough on our plate.”



The European council president, Donald Tusk, said the stakes of the Brexit talks were “too high to let our emotions get out of hand”.

“We must keep in mind that, in order to succeed, we need today discretion, moderation, mutual respect and a maximum of goodwill,” he said.

