On 27 April, former Tory health minister Dan Poulter defected to the Labour Party. His given reason was the absolute state of the NHS. While it’s true the Tories have violated our national health service, it’s also true the Tories have always been the party of NHS violation, and Poulter joined them anyway.
This begs the question: does Poulter actually want an NHS which works, or does he instead see Labour as a more effective vehicle for selling it off?
It’s a question NHS campaigner Dr Julia Grace Patterson thinks has a straightforward answer:
The fact that an MP can seamlessly hop from the Conservative Party to Labour tells you one thing; that Labour is not sufficiently different to the Tories 🚨🚨🚨
— Dr Julia Grace Patterson💙 (@JujuliaGrace) April 27, 2024
Poulter: MP by day, doctor by night
Poulter isn’t only an MP and former health minister; he’s also a doctor. He claims the experience of 20 gruelling night shifts over the past 12 months proved “truly life-changing”, and he added:
I could not go on as part of that. I have to be able to look my NHS colleagues in the eye, my patients in the eye and my constituents in the eye. And I know that the Conservative government has been failing on the thing I care about most, which is the NHS and its patients.
If Poulter joined the Tory Party and rose to the rank of health minister without ever understanding what his colleagues had planned, then he isn’t only an MP/doctor; he’s also a fucking idiot. To be fair, this isn’t a possibility we can discount.
Many people are complete idiots, of course, and many of them have risen to positions of power in the Tory Party. Poulter has been an MP since 2010, though, so if he is genuinely in favour of a functional NHS, he must be a massive idiot, because the Tories have consistently worked against that happening:
Poulter was a minister when the Tories were targeting disabled people through the bedroom tax & black people through the hostile environment, & when they were gutting public services & the NHS
Streeting says his defection reflects how much Lab has changed. Yes it does pic.twitter.com/CITZ91OEd5
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) April 28, 2024
In his time as an MP, Poulter witnessed:
- David Cameron’s NHS-kneecapping austerity measures.
- Theresa May’s follow-on government of austerity-as-usual
- The 2019 election, when it came out that Boris Johnson had plans to sell off parts of the NHS in a post-Brexit US trade deal.
What did Poulter think all this was leading to?
You can’t cheer on the lumberjack and then start crying when someone calls timber.
Or maybe you can, because of course the British press have the memory and political insight of a goldfish:
People outside the Westminster bubble are more willing to question what’s going on, however.
Julia: campaigner by day, doctor by trade
Dr Julia Grace Patterson describes herself as a campaigner, author, and doctor. She isn’t currently working clinically, as she’s busy working as the chief executive of Every Doctor UK – a “doctor-led campaign organisation fighting to #ReviveTheNHS”.
Patterson writes on her SubStack:
I am appalled at what UK politicians are doing, and I feel compelled to write about it!
She’s not optimistic about what Poulter’s defection says, as she’s yet to hear anything positive from Labour on the NHS:
…any grand statement from a politician about Labour being the best party to restore the NHS is just that; a grand statement from a politician.
Show us the evidence behind your claims. Show us the plans. Show us the costings. Show us the facts.
— Dr Julia Grace Patterson💙 (@JujuliaGrace) April 28, 2024
Patterson regularly takes criticism from Starmer supporters. Many of them think her job as an NHS campaigner is to support Starmer at all costs, even when he insists on promoting positions which will damage the NHS:
I’m being attacked by a bunch of people who are pro Starmer.
Guys – if your allegiance is stronger to a politician than it is to speaking up for important issues, then that’s your choice.
I’m not party-political. I’m just calling politicians out on their profound failures.
— Dr Julia Grace Patterson💙 (@JujuliaGrace) February 22, 2024
Keir Starmer’s Labour is not the party of the NHS. He’s very clear on that – look at what’s he’s saying. Believe him.
— Dr Julia Grace Patterson💙 (@JujuliaGrace) March 8, 2024
The argument from Starmer supporters is that although their man is an absolute horror show who will destroy the NHS, he will at least destroy it more slowly, and in a much more sensible fashion. They don’t say this out loud, of, but Patterson does, and they don’t disagree with her sentiment; they instead argue she needs to pipe down until after the election:
What's the goal here? To put people off voting for Labour? If so what alternative do you envisage?
If on the other hand you're trying to get them to buck up their ideas, surely you have more effective channels with which to do so— Doug McLean 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ (@McLeanDoug) February 27, 2024
The geniuses criticising her point out that shadow health minister Wes Streeting has spoken out against the mishandling of the “NHE”:
Stop turning this against Labour Julia. @wesstreeting constantly highlights the mishandling of the NHE
— Anne (@Anniepop2027) February 27, 2024
It’s true that Labour criticise NHS ‘mishandling’, but when they reveal what they would do differently, their plan is always to carry on mishandling it:
…it clear that he will not be pumping huge funding into the NHS as Tony Blair did.
Where does that leave us?
With a neoliberal Labour leader who supports NHS privatisation, and won’t pump enough money into public services to conceal the structural damage it creates. 🚨🚨🚨
— Dr Julia Grace Patterson💙 (@JujuliaGrace) March 8, 2024
Patterson’s position is that waiting until after the election is too late to call these things out:
…comment on the organisers (who are brilliant) or the Tories (who have broken so many things).
I am concerned however that Starmer is being framed by many as a change candidate, and I don’t think that’s accurate, and I think we need to wake up to that collectively.
— Dr Julia Grace Patterson💙 (@JujuliaGrace) February 22, 2024
Patients not patience
If Labour win the next election in a landslide, it’s going to hit the NHS like an avalanche.
Patterson is right; now is not the time for complacency.
It needs to be made clear that a Labour-led assault on the NHS will not be tolerated, and these MPs need to be shown up for what they are – a bunch of donor-backed privatisation fetishists who would have defected to the Tory Party if they had an honest bone in their body.
Because they don’t, we instead get the hideous spectacle of NHS-ruiners defecting to the Labour Party and gaslighting us into thinking they have our best interests in mind.
Featured image via GBNews / PNGTree / Wikimedia – Chris McAndrew (all images cropped)
