Donald Trump today took a wrecking ball to Jeremy Corbyn’s claims that he wants to seize the NHS – insisting the US has no interest in including it in a post-Brexit trade deal.
The US president flatly dismissed claims from the Labour leader that he wants to open the health service to American companies and push up drugs prices.
Speaking as he attended a NATO summit in London, Mr Trump insisted the US ‘wouldn’t touch the NHS if you gave it to us on a silver platter’.
Despite saying he had ‘no thoughts’ on the UK election, Mr Trump lavished praise on Boris Johnson for doing a ‘great job’ and made clear he had always supported Brexit.
The dramatic intervention came as Mr Corbyn went all-out to ‘weaponise’ the President’s arrival as he desperately tries to claw back the Tories’ poll advantage. A poll today found the Con
Yesterday Labour released an extraordinary video blaming Britain’s close relationship with the US for the London Bridge terror attacks – despite pleas to avoid politicising the atrocity.
Today the veteran left-winger has written to Mr Trump urging him to guarantee that the NHS will not form part of a trade deal.
And in an appearance on ITV’s This Morning, Mr Corbyn said he was planning to confront the president over the health service at a Buckingham Palace reception this evening.
Asked if the NHS should be on the table in post-Brexit trade talks Mr Trump said: ‘No, not at all. I have nothing to do with it, never even thought about it.’
He then praised the US healthcare system before adding: ‘In this country they have to work that out for themselves … I don’t even know where that rumour started, we have absolutely nothing to do with it.
‘And we wouldn’t want to if you handed it to us on a silver-platter, we want nothing to do with it.’
Mr Trump also delivered a thinly-veiled swipe at Mr Corbyn, saying he ‘knew nothing about’ the Labour leader. Pushed on whether he could work with him in No10, he replied: ‘I can work with anybody, I’m a very easy person to work with.’
US President Donald Trump was probed on the UK election at a press conference with NATO Secretary-General Secretary General Stoltenberg (left) but refused to give anything away and said he ‘didn’t want to complicate it’
President Trump is pictured at Winfield House in London this morning for the first meeting of a two-day NATO summit
Mr Corbyn (pictured supporting a strike at University of London today) is going all out to ‘weaponise’ the President’s arrival, and released a video yesterday blaming Britain’s close relationship with the US for the London Bridge terror attacks
Mr Trump said Boris Johnson (pictured right meeting war veteran James Gammer in Salisbury today) was doing a ‘good job’
The US President was probed before a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg but refused to give anything away and said he ‘didn’t want to complicate it’.
Trump is in the UK for a NATO summit, but Prime Minister Boris Johnson is keeping his distance, amid nervousness in Tory HQ that he will say something controversial and hurt the PM’s campaign.
The US leader said he is ‘staying out’ of the December 12 election and that he ‘thinks Boris will do a good job’.
He denied rumours that the NHS could be on the table in post-Brexit trade talks and said he has ‘nothing to do with it’ and has ‘never even thought about it’.
Asked if he could work with Jeremy Corbyn and Labour government he said he could ‘work with anyone’, before declaring is a ‘fan of Brexit’ and that he ‘called it the day before’.
Later today, Trump and First Lady Melania will attend a fundraiser in Park Lane and meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
This afternoon he will have tea with Prince Charles and Camilla before a reception for NATO leaders with the Queen at Buckingham Palace and another at Downing Street.
Ahead of this morning’s meeting, PM Mr Johnson appealed for unity among the leaders of the 29 member states – also including Germany’s Angela Merkel, Frances Emmanuel Macron and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – amid differences over Syria.
The Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall will formally greet NATO leaders at this evening’s reception, which marks 70 years of the alliance.
Charles and the Monarch will then join the politicians for a group photograph.
The royals will be out in force for the event, including the Duchess of Cambridge, the Earl of Wessex, the Princess Royal, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and Princess Alexandra.
Prince William is away in the Middle East, while Prince Harry and wife Meghan are on a six-week break from royal engagements over the festive period.
Prince Andrew, who stepped down from public duties after his disastrous Newsnight interview about his association with convicted padeophile Jeffrey Epstein, is also not attending.
The President’s arrival yesterday came at the end of a day that saw complaints both main UK political parties have exploited the deadly London Bridge attack.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has been desperately trying to ‘weaponise’ the Prime Minister’s ties to the US president as he tries to overhaul the Tory advantage in the polls.
In an extraordinary campaign video yesterday, he effectively blamed the Special Relationship for the London Bridge terror attack.
The footage showed images including flowers next to the road sign in the capital, with a soundtrack of Mr Corbyn condemning Western aggression for fuelling terrorism and emotional music.
Mr Corbyn tweeted the video along with a message that Mr Johnson should ‘stop clinging on to Donald Trump’s coat-tails’.
The Labour leader has a long record of opposing US influence throughout 30 years as a relatively obscure Labour backbencher.
He has previously insisted the NATO military alliance should have been scrapped decades ago, dismissed Britain’s ‘global role’, and said nuclear weapons should be unilaterally given up.
Last week MailOnline highlighted a 2014 article by Mr Corbyn’s closest aide, Seamus Milne, branding NATO a ‘colonial expeditionary force’ and calling for US bases in the UK to be closed and personnel sent home.
Last night the Labour leader wrote to Mr Trump demanding that he guarantees the US will not try to push NHS medicine prices up through a post-Brexit trade deal.
But Mr Corbyn is facing questions over leaked trade documents which experts said had hallmarks of a Russian fake news campaign.
He published the 451 pages of unredacted, classified files last week to back up his claims of a Tory plot to sell off the NHS. The documents were dismissed as not showing what he said they did.
And experts yesterday claimed the leak resembled a disinformation campaign uncovered this year which originated in Russia.
Researchers at Oxford and Cardiff universities, the Atlantic Council think-tank and social media analytics firm Graphika said the manner in which the files were first leaked online mirrored a campaign called Secondary Infektion.
Secondary Infektion, uncovered by the Atlantic Council in June, used fabricated or altered documents to spread fake news across at least 30 online platforms. It stemmed from a network of social media accounts which Facebook said ‘originated in Russia’.
Experts warned the similarities with the campaign and the manner in which the NHS documents were published could signal foreign interference in Britain’s election.
Ben Nimmo, head of investigations at Graphika, said: ‘It’s on the same set of websites [as Secondary Infektion], it’s using the same types of accounts and making the same language errors. It’s either the Russian operation or someone trying hard to look like it.’
A Labour spokesman said: ‘Neither the UK nor the US government have denied their authenticity. Given what they reveal, it’s not surprising that there are attempts to muddy the waters to cover up what has been exposed.’
Mr Corbyn is desperately trying to claw back the Tories’ election advantage, with a poll today showing they are 12 points ahead of Labour
US President Donald Trump and the First Lady Melania stepped off the plane in London tonight
President Trump is pictured above after he arrived at Stansted Airport this evening ahead of the Nato summit
Writing to Trump, Mr Corbyn said: ‘As you will know, the potential impact of any future UK-US trade agreement on our National Health Service and other vital public services is of profound concern to the British public.
‘A critical issue in this context is the cost of drugs to our NHS. The cost of patented drugs in the US is approximately 2.5 times higher than in the UK, and the price of the top 20 medicines is 4.8 times higher than in the UK.
‘Any increase in the NHS drugs bill would be an unacceptable outcome of US-UK trade negotiations.
‘Yet you have given a number of clear and worrying indications that this is exactly what you hope to achieve.’
He told Trump it would ‘go a long way to reassuring the British public’ if he rowed back from the NHS-related negotiation aims seen in the leaked civil service paper on the UK-US talks.
Mr Corbyn sent a letter with similar demands to the Prime Minister on Monday, the eve of the NATO summit.
Trump has previously claimed it would be ‘so bad’ for Britain if Mr Corbyn was to become Prime Minister.
The US leader told Nigel Farage’s LBC radio programme in October: ‘Corbyn would be so bad for your country, he’d be so bad, he’d take you on such a bad way. He’d take you into such bad places.’
Meanwhile yesterday Boris Johnson defended launching a crackdown on the treatment of convicted terrorists after the rampage by 28-year-old Usman Khan, who was out of prison on licence.
Former University of Cambridge students Saskia Jones, 23, and Jack Merritt, 25, were fatally stabbed during a prisoner rehabilitation event on Friday.
Khan was on licence and wearing an electronic monitoring tag when he launched the attack, which injured three others, after he was invited to the prisoner rehabilitation conference on Friday afternoon.
The event was organised held by Learning Together, a programme associated with Cambridge University’s Institute of Criminology.
Speaking to reporters in Southampton yesterday, the PM rejected the idea that his action was a knee-jerk response.
‘Look at my 2012 manifesto on crime … I’ve campaigned for a long time for longer sentences for serious and violent offenders,’ he said.
Mr Johnson said it was ‘probably clear from the outset’ that Khan was ‘too tough to crack’ when it came to rehabilitation.
‘What I’m saying is our job is to keep the public safe and that’s what we want to do,’ he added.
Meanwhile demonstrations are planned at Buckingham Palace today to coincide with the reception for Mr Trump and other world leaders in the grand State Rooms.
Among the protesters will be NHS nurses, doctors and workers campaigning over potential risks to the NHS from a future US-UK trade deal.
Nick Dearden, from Global Justice Now, said: ‘Tuesday’s demonstration will be led by nurses and doctors – to symbolise the millions of people who will stand up for our health service against a US president who simply represents the biggest, greediest corporate interests in the world.’
Stand Up To Trump, Stop the War Coalition and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) will be among the groups taking part.
Lindsey German, from Stop the War Coalition, said: ‘We need an alternative to war, militarism and racism – an anti-war government and a mass demonstration against Trump and Nato.’
CND general secretary Kate Hudson described Nato as ‘a hugely dangerous and destructive nuclear-armed alliance with the capacity to destroy all forms of life many times over’.
She added: ‘This is no time to celebrate and welcome it to London.’
Mr Trump tweeted a video of take-off and referred to the House impeachment report on him which will be unveiled in the US today behind closed doors for key politicians
Mrs Trump smiles and waves as she leaves the White House today before boarding Marine One. She is traveling with her husband to London
