Meet Nigel Farage: what UKIP really think about the NHS

The fact that UKIP is more Tory than the Tories has been often stated. Nowhere is it more clear that this statement is accurate than on health policy. The General Election will in part be a fight save the NHS. Not just from the Tories, but from UKIP as well. David Cameron’s Tories may have pushed our health service to the brink, but Nigel Farage has never even bothered to hide the fact that he is a cheerleader for increased privatisation, including through charging patients for basic care.

Nigel Farage has today defended his Party Secretary who advocates privatisation of the NHS, says the NHS is “the biggest waste of money in the UK” and compares the NHS to the “Reischstag bunker”. We can only conclude that Nigel Fargae will not comdemn these views because he shares them. His inaction today will be a permanent reminder of the damage UKIP would do to our cherished health service.

The NHS is simply not safe in the hands of UKIP and their leader Nigel Farage.

Leaked documents last week showed that UKIP’s ruling NEC have agreed to draw up plans to privatise the NHS, an idea that Farage was caught making in a video clip back in 2012 where he said: “I think we are going to have to move to an insurance-based system of healthcare. Frankly, I would feel more comfortable that my money would return value if I was able to do that through the market place of an insurance company”.

Let’s be clear. An insurance based system of health care means the end of the NHS as we know it. It would mean introducing a system which was no longer based on the severity or your health needs. Rather, you would be treated according to the size of your wallet and the nature of your insurance policy. Insurance policies routinely exclude people with pre-existing medical conditions, they tailor their service to the premium you pay and many insurance companies may not cover those who have for example a possible genetic predisposition to cancer, heart disease or Alzheimer’s.

In case you think that Farage is alone on this, it is equally clear that other key players in UKIP share similar views in the NHS.

Paul Nuttal, UKIP Deputy Leader, has reiterated this support for privatisation of the NHS. He previously said he wanted to “congratulate” the Government on “bringing a whiff of privatisation into the beleaguered National Health Service”and has recently said of NHS procurement, “It might be better if you brought in a private company who you could hire and fire on results”.

And now we know what Matthew Richardson thinks.  UKIP’s Party Secretary, hired by Farage to control UKIP’s image, has compared the NHS to Hitler’s Nazi bunker. You can see Farage’s friend in his own words here.

Do not believe any denials they publish. Farage and his party want to see the privatisation of the NHS.  They want to introduce an insurance-based health care system, much like the one seen in America. It will mean an end to our universal healthcare system and the emergence of two tier health care. There is no doubt it will hit working people the hardest.

UKIP’s health spokesperson has advocated charging for GP appointments and for making people pay to be seen in A&E more quickly. Farage himself also wants to see “efficiencies” by cutting the number of employees in the NHS, despite Tory NHS staff cuts already adding to the crisis in the health service.

UKIP Are a right wing party which belongs to the Tory Family. No Labour voter should be fooled even for a moment about their true nature. This week in the Sun newspaper Farage was reportedly making a secret deal with the Tories in exchange for a seat in the House of Lords. It has even been suggested that he is happy to close UKIP down as long as he gets a peerage for himself. Clearly he is not the man of the people he wants us to think he is.

It is with this backdrop that Labour is today launching a website “Meet Nigel Farage” to show just what UKIP and Farage intend to do to our NHS. They are not the party of the people, but rather a party for privatisation and privilege.

Jon Trickett is Deputy Chair of the Labour Party