NHS will be ‘ killed off’ if Britain remains in the EU
A MAJOR leak from Brussels has revealed the NHS will be killed off if Britain remains in the European Union.
Hundreds of papers from the secretive trade talks between the US and EU have been released online.
They appear to confirm fears that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership talks between Brussels and Washington will, when ratified, lead to the health service being privatised or dismantled.
The documents, obtained by Greenpeace Netherlands, include a US proposal to have a committee with representatives from Washington and Brussels to meet each year “to review state- owned enterprises and monopolies” which would include the NHS.
The committee would meet annually and would not be guaranteed a representative from Britain.
But it would still be able to review state- run services in ths country.
Its duties would include checking that state services do not “distort” the market.
One section of the papers makes it clear that the EU and America would seek eventually to end all forms of state intervention in competition with the private sector.
It says: “The parties acknowledge that anti- competitive business practices and state interventions have the potential to distort the proper functioning of markets and undermine the benefits of trade liberalisation.”
Opponents of TTIP have long argued that including healthcare in the treaty will force the privatisation of the NHS or at least make the process impossible to reverse.
EU officials claim they will have wording that allows for the NHS to be protected but have so far failed to provide a full exemption.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister David Cameron has refused to ask for an exemption while trying to persuade British vot- ers to back the Remain campaign in the EU Referendum.
Pro- Brexit campaigners have long warned that if Britain remains in the EU it will see its health service privatised and the NHS broken up.
Following the latest revelations, Nigel Farage’s Ukip warned the documents prove that the NHS is under threat with a Remain vote.
The party’s health spokeswoman Louise Bours said: “If we don’t say goodbye to the EU we will have to say goodbye to the NHS.
“This committee has been requested by American investors, who will meet with EU officials once a year to decide the fate of our NHS.”