\n<\/p>\n
Voters in May\u2019s local and devolved elections risk putting the NHS in jeopardy if they vote for populist parties, Wes Streeting has said, as he sought to make the health service a key battleground.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe founding principles of the NHS are at greater threat than at any time since the NHS was founded in 1948,\u201d the health secretary said.<\/p>\n
He warned that there was \u201ca particular jeopardy\u201d for the NHS in Wales, where Labour faces electoral wipeout at the hands of Reform UK and Plaid Cymru, with the latter pitching itself to voters as the best \u201cstop Reform\u201d option.<\/p>\n
Streeting called Labour\u2019s progressive rivals \u201crookies\u201d and said he \u201crefuse[d] to believe that many people in Wales would vote for Reform if they knew where Nigel Farage stood on the NHS\u201d.<\/p>\n
Streeting argued that the NHS in Scotland was weaker after almost two decades of SNP governance, while in England Labour-run councils would work more efficiently with Labour in government.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe choice that the voters need to make is who do they want to be in government in Scotland after 20 years of SNP failure?\u201d he said. \u201cIn Wales, do they really want to take the risk of the rookies, Plaid Cymru, or the disaster zone that is Reform, when they could have a Welsh Labour government working in partnership with a UK Labour government to deliver for Wales?<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd in councils across England, where Labour councils have managed to deliver against a Tory government, we need to keep those councils Labour so they can deliver in partnership with a Labour government.\u201d<\/p>\n
The intervention comes as new polling by More in Common for the Sunday Times suggested that 16 out of 22 cabinet ministers \u2013 including Rachel Reeves, Yvette Cooper, Ed Miliband and John Healey \u2013 would lose their seats if a general election were held today, with 12 seats going to Reform, three to the Greens and one to an independent.<\/p>\n
In an interview with the Guardian before a speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) on Monday, Streeting said the NHS was a \u201ckey battleground\u201d in May\u2019s elections and accused Farage of wanting to \u201cdismantle\u201d the NHS and of failing to set out his plans on healthcare.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea that the country that gave birth to Bevan and the NHS would elect into government in Wales a party that would dismantle it just sends shivers down my spine,\u201d Streeting said.<\/p>\n
Before the 2024 general election, Reform pledged to offer tax relief of 20% on all private healthcare policies if it won power. During Reform\u2019s Welsh conference in 2024, Farage called for a \u201cfundamental rethink\u201d to fix the Welsh NHS, which has significantly longer waiting lists than Scotland and England. Earlier this year, he told LBC he was \u201copen to anything\u201d and would consider a \u201cFrench-style\u201d NHS insurance system.<\/p>\n
A Reform spokesperson said: \u201cWe will always keep the NHS free at the point of use for British citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Streeting said Farage and fellow Reform MPs such as Richard Tice did \u201cnot believe in the NHS\u201d but were \u201cbeing uncharacteristically shy\u201d in order not to lose votes. \u201cThey hope voters will go into these elections thinking Reform is a safe protest vote. They are not. They are a risk to the NHS,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Streeting said a recent Guardian article that said the NHS was on course to miss key targets to shorten waiting times for help at A&E, cancer care and planned hospital treatment was based on out-of-date data.<\/p>\n
He said the government had a \u201cfighting chance\u201d of meeting waiting times reduction target for the end of March despite strikes by resident doctors, adding: \u201cWe\u2019re seeing significant and sustained reductions in the NHS waiting lists.\u201d<\/p>\n
Streeting, reflecting on the breadth of the challenge facing Labour before the May elections, also took aim at the Green party, which he called \u201cuncredible\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cWe have done really good progressive Labour things. My frustration is that we\u2019ve had our heads down getting on with doing those things. We need to do a lot better at looking up and telling the country what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Streeting is widely believed to harbour leadership ambitions, he insisted that if Labour fared poorly in May, he would urge fellow MPs not to attempt to oust Keir Starmer. \u201cThe prime minister is here to stay,\u201d he said. \u201cKeir Starmer won a big majority at the last election and a mandate to change the country. We\u2019ve got to get on with that job, not turning in on ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Voters in May\u2019s local and devolved elections risk putting the NHS in jeopardy if they vote for populist parties, Wes Streeting has said, as he sought to make the health service a key battleground. \u201cThe founding principles of the NHS are at greater threat than at any time since the NHS was founded in 1948,\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[3580,1229,19623,13091,356,736,1225,840,1224],"class_list":{"0":"post-48221","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-elections","9":"tag-nhs","10":"tag-parties","11":"tag-populist","12":"tag-put","13":"tag-risk","14":"tag-streeting","15":"tag-votes","16":"tag-wes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}