However, I also read the document. Much of it is old, two years old,
What this means is that discussions are ongoing. It is a long term plan. They have been discussing the possibility of selling out the NHS for two years. Talks haven't stalled and they haven't stopped. They are working towards an end game, the objective of which has not changed.
Trade talks typically take about 5 years - so get used to documents that aren't minty fresh but still have a bearing on what is going to happen.
Nowhere does it say that anything has been agreed, not even in principle. This document was a preliminary scope for further negotiations.
They cannot agree to anything whilst we are still in the EU. We cannot strike post brexit trade deals until brexit has happened. But rest assured, once it has happened - and we are working on replacing our 70+ lost trade deals simultaneously all alone with very little to offer, and the whole world circling like sharks on a cramping swimmer, we will sign up to whatever anybody asks for. We will be that desperate. And desperation aside - even if we can strike favourable trade deals with smaller countries, we will never have the might to stand up to the U.S and get what we want.
What the U.S say they want of us is exactly what they get. Rather than assuming that these preliminary discussions will be watered down once we get to the real deal - I would assume they will be souped up once we are in a weaker post brexit position with no choice but to agree anything. At the moment the U.S will be trying not to scare us off and make us rethink leaving the EU based on their demands. No need to be coy once brexit is a done deal.
In my view, NO government of any colour, will fully privatise the NHS.
They're not going to sell it off over night, no. We won't wake up on the 14th December to find out that our newly elected PM sold off the NHS as his very first act in office, the day before.
What they will do is starve it of funds and wind it down - allowing countless people to die in the process - and start charging for more things. Prescriptions used to be free across the whole country for everyone. The tories put a stop to that in England and got away with it. They will do something similar again - introduce a small charge on something else. Then they will increase that charge. And then do the same to another thing just like it. And they will get away with it.
Sure we might grumble - but they have a majority and five years in power - there's nothing we can do about it.
Once we're paying for things anyway and the NHS is in an even worse state than it is now, they will start with the NHS bashing - pointing out failures to meet targets, long waits, people dying on trolleys, deaths that happened due to oversight etc etc They won't tell people that this is happening because the NHS is underfunded by them. They will just quietly point out that the NHS is not fit for purpose, that you wouldn't want to be treated in an NHS hospital, you wouldn't want your elderly mother dying on a trolley, that it isn't a good enough service for the British people.
So by the time they start introducing insurance schemes, and sell off more sectors of it to private companies, people will welcome it. Because the NHS doesn't work - and they are being promised that this new scheme will be better.
Reader, it won't be better.
Of course the tories will get away with it, of course it won't be electoral suicide. They are already doing it and people don't believe it. They know they can get away with it because they have been getting away with it. People do not believe that the tories will sell off the NHS - they make some noises about keeping it safe, whilst selling it off in front of your eyes, and people still vote for them. Because people want to believe the lies - that it will be OK - so they don't bother to join up the dots. And we vote in another tory govt.
The tories are laughing at the voters - they despise us all, even if you vote for them, they despise you - they are selling off the NHS, they have been starving it of funds in preparation of that, and people still don't believe it is happening. Of course they will get away with the next step in privatisation - and they know they will get away with it because they always have done in the past
Remember - the tories do not believe in the NHS. They voted multiple times against setting it up and have spent all the time they have been in power since then running it down. They are ideologically opposed to free at the point of care health service. They are the party of laissez faire. And they will take the NHS away from us all because that is what they believe in and they know - from experience - that people won't even notice until it's too late. And when they do notice - they'll still blame labour.
Anyone, who is not a multimillionaire and has even a a shred of self respect should not vote for the tories. They hate you. They use you - but they still hate you.