CAMPAIGNERS are expected to rally in Stourbridge at lunchtime today (Saturday October 24) to highlight their opposition to plans for a US trade deal.

Members of Dudley Momentum, West Mids Internationalists and Global Justice Now are expected to gather in the town at midday by the clock.

Campaigners have described the proposed trade deal with the US as “toxic” and they say it could result in the NHS being targeted by American healthcare companies, deregulation of environmental laws, rights at work and rights to data privacy and lower food standards.

A spokesman for the Stourbridge rally said: “If this sounds scary – that’s because it is. We can stop it, but we need to make our voices heard.”

Dudley South MP Mike Wood has said of the deal: “The NHS is not on the table in any trade deal. The price the NHS pays for drugs in not on the table in any trade deal. The services the NHS provides will not be on the table in any trade deal.”

Stourbridge MP Suzanne Webb said: “Protecting the NHS goes to the heart of our party and as part of our negotiations the NHS is not on the table.

"There are those on the opposition benches who cannot accept the fact that we have left the European Union which will enable us to have ambitious new trade agreements with partners across the world without resorting to this kind of scaremongering about the future of our National Health Service to score cheap points.”

Anyone attending the rally should wear masks and adhere to social distancing guidelines and take along gloves and hand sanitiser.