Nigel Farage is proposing send his own team to America to agree a trade deal with Donald Trump – days after the president said the NHS would need to be involved in talks.
Speaking to the Mail Online the Brexiteer said he would approach leading British businesses “over the next few weeks or months – weeks probably” to assemble his own trade mission to Washington independent of the UK’s Department for International Trade.
Despite having no representation in UK parliament, Farage said he would put together a “small panel of industrialists, dealmakers, people who’ve been involved in business at a senior level, and I intend to request a visit to go and see Bob Lighthizer and to have a conversation.”
“And if we have to independently, as the Brexit Party, set up a blueprint for what needs to be done, we will.”
He has complained that Liam Fox’s trade department had given no sign that “any serious work had been done at all”.
Asked if the White House was aware of his plans, he told the website that “they will soon”.
But he also admitted that he was “not ready” as he had only thought of the idea that week.
“I’ve got some names of people who have been very senior in British industry that I’m going to ask over the course of the next couple of weeks.
“I’m not ready. It literally just dawned on me this week. It dawned on me how much work America has done, and how little we’ve done.”
Trump was forced to row back on his claims that the NHS would be part of any trade deal, but the initial admission the NHS would have to be involved has reignited fears, as well as the impact the deal would have on food standards in the UK.
Farage, however, is unlikely to be too concerned about the NHS.
Just last month he said private companies could “take the burden off the NHS”.
“If I was encouraged to opt out of the system, to relieve the burden on the health service, I would do so gleefully,” he added.
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