It's Good Policy. It's Good Politics, and So the Tories and the Lib-Dems Will Not Support It

But all the leaders of the other major parties are demanding that the National Heal Service be protected against predatory investors:

Leaders of almost every major political party in the United Kingdom have signed an appeal not to allow a transatlantic trade deal known as TTIP become the Trojan horse that allows American business interests to take over the NHS.

The appeal, organised by the trade union Unite, has achieved the rare feat of bringing together all of Northern Ireland’s main political parties. TTIP, or the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, would free up trade between the US and the EU, by allowing companies from either side of the Atlantic to operate under the same rules.

One of its most controversial elements would be the creation of a new supranational court, the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) through which foreign investors could sue governments, or the EU, over any action or legislation that hurt their businesses. It is feared that an American private healthcare firm which was prevented from buying up part of the NHS would be able to go to the ISDS and claim millions of pounds in compensation from the British government for lost business.

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The appeal has also been signed by the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, the Ukip leader Nigel Farage, the Green Party leader Natalie Bennett, and Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood, and by Peter Robinson of the Democratic Unionist Party, and Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness.


The organisers, from Unite, say that they approached the Conservatives asking for support but were refused, and are awaiting a reply from the Liberal Democrats.

The Tories have been wanting to privatize the NHS since it began operations in 1948, and the Liberal Democrats have specialized in being completely useless and ineffectual since before Lloyd George died, so their actions are not surprising.

Unfortunately, in the mad rush for a bad deal, it is very likely that privatized healthcare, with its associated excessive spending and poor health outcomes, will be in the UK's future.