Ukip have no plan for the future

Lunchtime yesterday, eleven days on from the Scottish referendum, I found myself back on a street corner talking politics. And although the break-up of the UK wasn’t on people’s lips, some of the issues in the centre of Middleton were the same. A frustration about politics, worries about public services and a sense that in hard times people want a sense of a fairer, more prosperous future.

I was in Heywood and Middleton to support Labour’s parliamentary candidate Liz McInnes. Liz will be a great MP, she has a real passion for this community and working at a local hospital she knows the NHS inside and out. But this by-election is one I wish we weren’t having.

Earlier this month, I met my friend Jim Dobbin, to talk about the coming legislation on UK aid. He spoke with a conviction about the poor that was always part of his politics. That was the last time I saw him. He was a good friend – we shared not only our identity as Labour but also as Scots. We also had a commitment to a certain football team from the East End Glasgow as well as a faith – although he usually seemed to have the lion’s share of that. His family and friends will miss him deeply, and so will I and so many in the Party.

But as always, whilst those who have lost loved ones take the time to grieve, politics marches on – often in a way that can feel insensitive to those who are bereaved.

So a by-election has arrived in Heywood and Middleton. And like the many Labour MPs and campaigners I saw today, I have tried to do my bit. So once again it was me, my two Irn-Bru crates, a microphone and whoever stopped to listen.

And there was no denying what people wanted to talk about – the NHS. When Ed Miliband made his (fully funded) £2.5billion  ‘Time to Care’ package the centrepiece of his conference speech the Westminster bubble was alive with debate about whether or not this was good politics – it’s as though positioning is all and policy counts for little.

But people don’t much care about that.

What most people want is an NHS that works for them, and anyone that talks to people in and around Greater Manchester will tell you that lengthy GP waiting times is becoming a serious problem.

In NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale clinical commissioning groups, more than one in ten appointments to see a GP now mean a wait of longer than a week. Labour’s promise that no one will wait more than 48 hours, guaranteed, seems like a pretty popular solution in our open air meeting today.

Elsewhere, as you would expect, there were questions about everything from the cost of living, nursery places and primary school education – another big issue in Heywood and Middleton – and of course the odd heckler, which always adds to the sense of occasion.

But whilst in Scotland the hecklers were nationalist, on Middleton Gardens it was UKIP. We all know there are lots of people who feel like politics doesn’t work for them, and UKIP and the SNP in their own different ways offer one-dimensional responses to a complicated world. In the world of identity politics it was nice not to be told by Scottish hecklers to ‘Bugger off back to England!’ although one today UKIPer did shout ‘Piss off back to Scotland!’

UKIP have no plan for the future nor interest in developing one. They simply stir up grievance and sow division – whatever the question, they are not the answer.

But Labour’s Liz McInnes is taking them and the Tories on. And I’m confident she will win this community’s support. Liz is a thoroughly committed health care professional. Of course a noisy minority of voters dislike the EU – or more accurate the parody of the EU portrayed by UKIP and echoed by the Tories. But there’s one institution that most people have even stronger feelings about and that’s the NHS. Even in hour in Middleton today it was clear that people respect and want to protect the NHS. It is fast emerging as the biggest issue in the by-election campaign. Liz McInnes isn’t just the Labour candidate next week; she’s also the candidate for the NHS. She will do brilliantly.

Jim Murphy is the Shadow Secretary of State for International Development