Farage and Badenoch need NHS to fail to allow them to seize energy, Wes Streeting warns
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and Kemi Badenoch’s Tories want the NHS to fail so they can seize power from Labour, Wes Streeting has warned.
And he said delivering on Labour’s promises was not enough to beat them – they must be prepared to take on their arguments and defeat them.
The Health Secretary’s stern intervention comes amid concerns Labour’s focus on long-term delivery over quick fixes had created a vaccum that allowed populist, right-wing “easy answers” to thrive and grow.
This week Reform UK achieved their highest poll numbers – topping a national poll for the first time since 2019, before they changed their name from the Brexit Party.
In a speech to the Fabian Society, Mr Streeting said the state of the NHS has bred cynicism about the future of free healthcare in Britain – and in the power of politics to deliver change.
“It creates the conditions in which the populist right thrives,” he said. “That is why the Conservatives and Reform are rolling the pitch for Labour to fail on the NHS.
“They want us to fail. Because if we don’t turn the NHS around, they will have the chance to beat us at the ballot box and overturn 76 years of universal healthcare, publicly funded, free at the point of need.”
Mr Streeting said both Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage had floated the idea of charging for NHS treatments in the past.
“The founding principles of the NHS are now a contested issue in British politics for the first time in generations,” he said.
“The fate of our party and the health service we founded in 1948 are intertwined like never before.
“The populist right are coming for us. We need to be serious about beating them.”
Mr Streeting urged his party to take the fight to Reform UK – saying delivery alone would not be enough to defeat them, as was seen with the re-election of Donald Trump in the US.
“Delivery is essential. But it’s not enough on its own,” he said. “We have to take on the populists’ arguments and defeat them in the battle of ideas. We should do so confidently.
“For all the coverage of Nigel Farage in recent weeks, all the speculation about whether he could become Prime Minister, there has been almost no reporting of what he would actually do in office. It’s about time Reform’s agenda was put under some scrutiny.”
He added: “The crux of Farage’s argument is this: what was possible in the twentieth century isn’t possible in the 21st. It’s a miserabilist, declinist vision for Britain’s future.
“People shouldn’t have to choose between a health service that treats them on time and an NHS free at the point of use. It’s a poverty of ambition for our country. Labour utterly rejects it.”
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