'Our NHS is not for sale' Jeremy Corbyn hits out at the Tories

5 November 2019, 12:39 | Updated: 5 November 2019, 12:41

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has hit out at Boris Johnson's Brexit plans accusing the Prime Minister of trying to "hijack Brexit to sell out our NHS and working people."

Introducing his party's candidate for Harlow, Laura McAlpine, Mr Corbyn said: "She’s from Harlow. She’s for Harlow. She understands Harlow."

The party leader offered his thanks to Keir Starmer the Shadow Brexit Secretary, who he said had done a "wonderful job" over the last three years, "picking apart the Tories’ shambolic handling of Brexit."

Mr Corbyn accused the Prime Minister of using the General Election to "hijack Brexit to sell out our NHS and working people."

He added Mr Johnson was "trying to cash in the votes of millions who voted to leave the EU, to buy political power for himself and then sell them out. It’s time to call him out."

Speaking in front of a background that read "it's time for real change" Mr Corbyn said: "Boris Johnson and the leave campaign promised to rebuild our NHS, and they promised that people would be able to take back control of their lives after years of watching their towns being run down: factories gone, jobs gone, their sense of community gone."

He said that three years later "Johnson is trying to hijack that hope for change and use it for his own very different ends.

"He stood in front of a bus in 2016 and promised £350 million a week for the NHS. Now we find out that £500 million a week could be taken out of the NHS and handed to big drugs companies under his plans for a sell-out trade deal with Donald Trump."

Branding some US healthcare companies as "ruthless," the Labour leader said: "They will suck as much money as they can out of our NHS while cancer patients wait longer for treatment."

Mr Corbyn said a vote for Boris Johnson’s Conservatives is "a vote to betray our NHS in a sell-out to Trump. Johnson’s Trump deal Brexit puts a price tag on our NHS."

In a chant taken up by many in the room Mr Corbyn said: "Our NHS is NOT FOR SALE."

On the subject of food safety, he said if the Tories were "given the chance" they would "slash food standards to match the US, where what are called “acceptable levels” of rat hairs in paprika, and maggots in orange juice are allowed and they’ll put chlorinated chicken on our supermarket shelves."

Renewing his promise to "get Brexit sorted" within six months if elected, Mr Corbyn pledged that Labour's plan for Brexit is "clear and simple."

Labour has previously offered a second referendum should they get into power, the Labour leader promised voted this "won’t be a rerun of 2016."

He said, "this time the choice will be between leaving with a sensible deal or remaining in the European Union."

Mr Corbyn said: "That’s the policy. It really isn’t complicated."

Revealing his party's Brexit plans the leader said an incoming Labour government will first secure a "sensible deal, which he believes till "take no longer than three months because the deal will be based on terms we’ve already discussed with the EU, including a new customs union, a close single market relationship and guarantees of rights and protections."

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