Labour To Step Up NHS Focused Attacks On Nigel Farage
4 min read
Labour has decided to step up its attacks on Nigel Farage and his Reform party, and the NHS will be front and centre of its campaign, PoliticsHome understands.
At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Labour MP for Rugby John Slinger used his question to accuse the Reform leader of wanting an "insurance based system for the NHS".
Farage in January told the Times newspaper ministers must “identify a system of funding for healthcare that is more effective than the one we have currently got”. He also raised concerns over the NHS long-term funding model during the July election campaign.
Starmer himself attacked Farage on the health service. Responding to the Reform leader's question about the future of the Chagos Islands, Starmer said there is "panic" among people who "know under his policy he wants to charge them for using the NHS".
Farage in PMQs said the remarks showed there is "panic" among Labour ranks about the electoral threat his party poses.
"Reform want healthcare to be free at the point of delivery," he added.
However, the attacks on Wednesday were early signs of a long-term strategy Labour will use in a bid to take the fight to Farage as his party surges in the opinion polls, PoliticsHome understands. Labour strategists believe the health service represents a vulnerability for the Reform leader that they will seek to target in the coming weeks and beyond.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting on Wednesday claimed the leading Brexiteer would “introduce an insurance model and charge patients to use the NHS”.
Labour is also preparing to attack Farage on his past claim that the West “provoked” Russia into invading Ukraine, as well as his 2022 social media post praising former Tory prime minister Liz Truss' mini-budget as the best government budget in decades.
The government has been under pressure from Labour MPs to take the fight to Reform.
The right-wing party has surged in the opinion polls since the general election and is confident of major gains at May's local elections. This week, YouGov put Reform ahead of Labour for the first time, though the one-point lead was within the margin of error. Labour MPs are nervous about the threat Farage poses at the next general election in four years' time. Of the 98 constituencies where the right-wing party came second at last year's general election, 89 — so around 90 per cent — are held by Starmer's party.
PoliticsHome has recently reported that groups of Labour MPs want the government to combat Farage by being more vocal about their efforts to tackle illegal migration.
“Yvette Cooper [home secretary] is doing a great job in policy terms, for instance over 16,000 illegal immigrants have been deported,” Luke Akehurst, Labour MP for North Durham said.
“We need to be louder about the action we are taking as voters won't hear about it in the press. We have got to cut through with what we are doing on immigration on social media [like Reform]," he told PoliticsHome.
A part of that push is coming from 'blue labour' backbenchers, who describe themselves as economically left-wing but more socially conservative on issues like immigration.
Some Labour MPs want ministers to make reducing legal migration a bigger talking point, too.
“The key thing is, in two or three years’ time we are going to have to pivot,” said one Labour MP. “Look around the world and look what is happening to centre-left parties. We should do it now, but will it be too late when we actually do it?”
There is confidence among Labour MPs that in Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, who has experience of defeating the British National Party, they have someone who can navigate the issue of migration in the face of a significant right-wing electoral threat.
However, there are some in Labour who are pushing for the party HQ attack team to be given additional resources to support its more offensive approach.
“There’s clearly a desire from the troops to take it on and meet the challenge of taking on Reform, but it’s like the directors have blinkers on," one source told PoliticsHome.
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