McDonnell says voters should not trust Trump’s claims that NHS will not be part of US deal

The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has warned the public not to trust Donald Trump’s assurance that the NHS will not form part of post-Brexit trade deals as he committed Labour to eradicating all traces of privatisation from the service.

Ahead of the first full week of general election campaigning, the senior party figure also described his sadness that Jewish newspapers had collectively suggested Labour under Jeremy Corbyn would endanger their community, and admitted that the party’s target to be carbon neutral by 2030 would be “tough” to meet.

On the NHS, he highlighted meetings UK civil servants had had with US pharmaceutical companies as revealed in Channel 4’s Dispatches, claiming they had met on “nine or 11 occasions” and were “negotiating to sell our NHS”. The government denies that their intention is for the NHS to be sold into the private sector.

Speaking to The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One, the shadow chancellor said: “From what we’ve seen of the evidence from the Dispatches programme from civil servants negotiating with pharmaceutical companies, I think it is true.”

Asked whether Trump’s statements were enough to remove the worry that the NHS would form part of a possible future partnership, he said: “Donald Trump has … on this particular issue, made a number of contradictory statements.

“We have to go on the evidence. The evidence, the civil servants, on nine or 11 occasions sitting down negotiating to sell our NHS.”

During an interview with the Brexit party leader, Nigel Farage, on Thursday night, the US president said outright he was not interested in buying the NHS.

However, McDonnell said he should not be trusted.

“I do not believe Trump’s assurances and I don’t think many people do,” he said, adding that Labour would end all privatisation in the health service.

Tory party chairman, James Cleverly, said: “The NHS is not for sale, never has been, and never will be. We will never allow any trade agreement to change this fundamental fact and will continue to ensure that patients have access to clinically and cost-effective medicines that are affordable to the NHS.”

McDonnell’s warnings about the NHS come as Labour uncovered new figures showing that thousands of operations have been cancelled due to staff shortages and equipment failures, according to data received in FoI requests.

Last year, 78,981 operations were cancelled. These operations were either classed as urgent or were elective operations cancelled at the last minute. This was down from 81,565 in 2017-18.

The number of operations cancelled because of staffing issues and equipment failures have each increased by a third in the last two years. In 2018-19, 10,900 were cancelled because of staffing issues, while 4,800 were cancelled because of equipment failures.

Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s shadow health and social care secretary, said: “That so many more people in pain and distress are forced to endure cancelled operations, including increasingly on the day they were supposed to have treatment, is a shameful indictment of a decade of Tory cutbacks running our NHS into the ground.”

On climate change, which is one of Labour’s key election policy areas, McDonnell admitted the party’s pledge on emissions, which was passed at its conference, would be “tough” to achieve but it was working on it. The target could be met by its policy announcement about refurbishing homes to put in greener energy provision.

McDonnell said the Heathrow airport expansion could be scrapped under Labour’s plans. “We set ourselves criteria, one of which was environmental impact, the other was also economic impact and social impact. On the current criteria, we’ve said very clearly, Heathrow expansion doesn’t qualify,” he said.

Pressed if Labour would cancel the extension, he said: “At the moment it does not qualify based on the criteria we set out.”

McDonnell also said he was saddened that three of the country’s biggest Jewish newspapers had printed damning stories on what a Corbyn government might mean for their community because of his failure to tackle antisemitism among party members.

He said: “I am so saddened by this. I just want to reassure them we are doing everything we can. We’re also doing everything we can to educate our own members.

“All the things that they have asked us to do, we’re doing.”

Just hours before his interview Labour suspended the parliamentary candidate Matthew Collings, who was due to run in the Tory MP Liz Truss’s seat, South West Norfolk, after it emerged he had called the former chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks a “hate filled racist”. Questions were also raised about other social media posts he had made.



