HEALTH SECRETARY Wes Streeting has launched a fierce attack on Reform UK, warning that Britain is in a "dangerous place for democracy" and accused Nigel Farage's party of driving a "tide of racism" not seen in living memory.
Speaking in east London on Wednesday (25), Streeting said the kind of open prejudice he was now witnessing reminded him of stories he had heard as a child about the 1970s. "It is back," he said. "Reform fuel it. Their politics benefit from it."
He described the party as an "existential threat" to the country and said the prospect of Reform winning local elections in Wales in May "sends a shiver down my spine", reported the Times.
He added: "They have the audacity to dress up nationalism as patriotism and claim that they are the party for the working man and woman at the same time. They are an affront to this country, its history, its heritage, its values and its national health service."
Streeting, widely regarded as a frontrunner to succeed Sir Keir Starmer as Labour leader, was defiant about his party's chances. "If we can't defeat this lot, then we shouldn't be in the business of politics at all," he said. "We're going to take them on, and we're going to beat them."
The health secretary also turned his fire on the Greens, mocking newly elected party leader Zack Polanski, a former hypnotherapist who has claimed the practice could enhance women's breasts. Streeting said there were "legitimate questions to answer about why such a person should be trusted with elected office."
Streeting made his remarks during a speech in which he announced tough new measures for five of England's worst-performing NHS hospital trusts.
He said a "sense of fatalism" had taken hold in some struggling hospitals, with staff who no longer believed things could improve.
Under the plans, the leaders of those trusts face being sacked and replaced by what Streeting called "NHS veterans with a history of success." The poorest performers could also be merged with neighbouring trusts.
The five trusts in the first wave of measures are North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust, Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust, and East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust.
