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Professor Minford is on record calling for the car industry to be ‘run down’. And he’s called for private companies to replace our NHS. He’s no friend to UK manufacturing and the workers whose jobs depend on it, and no friend to families who rely on public services.

date: 27 April 2016
embargo: 00.01hrs Thursday 28 April 2016

Commenting on a new campaign launched today (Thursday) by eight economists for Brexit, led by Professor Patrick Minford, TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady said:

"Professor Minford is on record calling for the car industry to be ‘run down’. And he’s called for private companies to replace our NHS. He’s no friend to UK manufacturing and the workers whose jobs depend on it, and no friend to families who rely on public services.

“With every major global economic body agreeing on the threat of Brexit to the UK economy, it is hard to take his views seriously. Trade unions are proud of British manufacturing and the goods we export. Leaving the EU would put at risk the investment manufacturing needs, the trade it depends on, and the good jobs it provides."

NOTES TO EDITORS:

  • In 2012, Patrick Minford told the Foreign Affairs Select Committee: “It is perfectly true that if you remove protection of the sort that has been given particularly to the car industry and other manufacturing industries inside the protective wall, you will have a change in the situation facing that industry, and you are going to have to run it down. It will be in your interests to do it, just as in the same way we ran down the coal and steel industries.See page 32: www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmfaff/87/87ii.pdf
  • In 1999, Patrick Minford wrote for the Daily Telegraph arguing that the NHS “cruelly constrained” private health providers and that NHS services should be “rationed severely and brutally to the vast majority who ought to be paying for themselves”. His full article can be found here: www.patrickminford.net/news_archive/dt991004.html
  • Follow the TUC on Twitter: @The_TUC and follow the TUC press team @tucnews

Contacts:
Media enquiries: Tim Nichols  T: 020 7467 1388  M: 07808 761844  E: tnichols@tuc.org.uk

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