so I guess is just someone's additional thoughts to try to make it say something which is not actually there.

A cut'n'paste is painful on my phone, so I needed to wait until I had access to a more convenient machine. I find it marginally odd, Nigel, that you can see I quoted the sentence in the report after the one in the Guardian article without thinking it at least possible I had more of the report itself before I expressed that opinion, but hey ho, that's life.

Here is an extract from the actual paper produced by Daniel Hannan and co. I do not intend to discuss it further, but it is left to the reader to decide if anything in this suggests I am trying to "make it say something that is not there" about the risks to the NHS:


Summing up, the ideal FTA is one that removes all barriers to trade in goods and services, opens up all sectors of the economy to investment, and, ultimately, goes as far as possible to remove all administrative impediments to integration of the economies of the parties without encroaching on the sovereignty of governments to pass laws and regulate in the public interest in ways that do not discriminate against foreign goods, services, and companies.

In practical terms, that means that the ideal agreement will result in the following:
•Zero tariffs on all goods (agricultural commodities, primary industry resources, and manufacturing industry goods);
•Zero discriminatory nontariff barriers, which means no discrimination by either party in the content or exercise of the laws, regulations, or practices affecting the provision of services of either party, including no restrictions on the entry of businesspeople in the conduct of the provision of business services;
•Zero restrictions on competition for government procurement;
•Zero restrictions on foreign direct investment in the economy;
•Zero restrictions on cross-border data flow;
•Elimination to the fullest extent possible of impediments to expeditious customs clearance procedures for both imports and exports;
•Preclusion of the adoption of antidumping or safeguard measures between or among parties; and
•Strict prohibitions against the use of nontariff barriers, such as performance requirements, restrictions based on scientifically unsubstantiated public health and safety concerns, and restrictions based on national security concerns that fail to meet certain minimum standards.

What this means substantively is that, without the need to articulate exceptions and carve-outs, which are so common in other agreements, the U.S.-U.K. FTA can be shorter and simpler, and its provisions can be covered in fewer chapters



Equally, on getting rid of the precautionary principle, so that all additives etc can be put in food unless positively proven to be harmful:

Chapter 12. Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures

It is critical that measures to protect animal, human, or plant health are based on sound science and that the parties do not adopt measures that are disguised barriers to trade and competition. The purpose of this chapter is to afford appropriate protections and to impose disciplines on the parties to ensure that measures in this area are not corrupted toward impeding trade