Wes Streeting heckled by protesters as he urges progressives to fight the ‘populist right’
UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting was interrupted by climate protesters on Saturday as he gave a speech urging progressives to fight the “populist right” in a battle of ideas.
Two women shouted over him as he used an address to the Fabian Society to call for the centre-left to take on the “miserablist, declinist vision” he said was offered by figures like Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.
The demonstrators, who were both swiftly taken out of the conference hall in central London by security, said they had voted Labour but were protesting against the continued subsidisation of Drax power station in North Yorkshire.
Promises
Mr Streeting said the Government was implementing policies to bring about change, including by hiring more doctors and cutting NHS waiting lists, adding: “And that’s much better than shouting from the sidelines.”
One of the demonstrators, Zoe Courtney-Bodgener, told the PA news agency: “Labour promised change and we voted for them because we wanted change and they are continuing to subsidise.
“We still believe that there’s time for them to make a difference, but they need to end the subsidies now.”
In his keynote address at the Fabian Society’s new year conference, Mr Streeting took aim at Mr Farage for offering what he described as a “poverty of ambition” for Britain.
It comes after Mr Farage’s party topped a national opinion poll for the first time, with 26% of the vote, in a survey carried out by Find Out Now on Wednesday.
In the most direct attack on Mr Farage by a Cabinet minister since Labour entered Government, Mr Streeting said: “The crux of Farage’s argument is this, what was possible in the 20th century isn’t possible in the 21st.
“It’s a miserablist, declinist vision for Britain’s future.
“People shouldn’t have to choose between a health service that treats them on time and an NHS free at point of use.
“That’s a poverty of ambition for our country and Labour utterly rejects it.”
Antidote
Mr Farage told The Times earlier this month: “We’ve got to identify a system of funding for healthcare that is more effective than the one we have currently got, and at the same time carries those who can’t afford to pay.”
The Health Secretary told the event: “I can’t think of a more potent antidote to Farage’s miserabilism than proving the cynics wrong and getting the NHS delivering world-class care for patients every time.”
He said that Labour must not shy away from acknowledging state failure, saying “western liberal democracies are littered with the corpses of progressive political parties who found themselves defending the indefensible”.
“The populist right are coming for us and we need to be serious about beating them,” he said.
“We have to do three things: suffocate their conspiracism with honesty, overcome their cynicism with hope by delivering real change, and take on their arguments to win the battle of ideas.
“Beating the populist right will require us to be honest with ourselves – sometimes the centre-left can forget our purpose.”
He accused the Conservatives and Reform of “rolling the pitch for Labour to fail on the NHS”, adding: “They want us to fail, because if we don’t turn the NHS around, they will have the chance to beat us at the ballot box and overturn 76 years of universal healthcare, publicly funded, free at the point of need.”
Trump
Just days after US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Mr Streeting also said the Government feels a “responsibility at this moment in history” to be “the light on the hill for progressives around the world”.
He said the Labour administration would approach its transatlantic relationship as every UK government has, in recognising the “deep and existential nature of this alliance”, but that it felt “confident in our politics and our values”.
Asked whether Mr Trump’s victory would prompt him to rethink how salient progressive values are to the wider public, Mr Streeting said: “No.
“I think we feel in the Starmer Government that it’s our responsibility at this moment in history to be the light on the hill for progressives around the world.”
He said Mr Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the World Health Organisation (WHO) would “bring its challenges” but “it’s not a surprise and, to be fair to president Trump, he was clear ahead of the election that is what he would do”.
Mr Streeting added: “I disagree with it. I respect their right to make a different decision.”
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This is nonsense of course.
The main thrust of the Labour Party is, as you imply, Jason, continuing with the economic policy and economic model of the Tories. Labour, having ditched green policies and much else, are now giving the people the least they can get away with. “Too warm in your homes – we can fix that!” What are the Fabians thinking? Labour has changed sides – against the people and now for Reform and the Tories. ‘Conservative’ but no less reprehensible economic policies and increasingly Trump/Farage-like social policies. Streeting, Starmer and Reeves are a particular threat to our NHS. Do we want that?… Read more »
London Labour is a product of the voting system. It is only in government because of support from the centre. If you want to see proper left wing politics in central government the only way it can happen is by being coalition partner. This needs a different voting system and smaller parties that don’t adhere to the “broad church” nonsense which stops voters deciding how left or right leaning the government is, and puts this choice into the hands of a clique of party members and worse allows them to change tack mid way through the term in office.
Streeting is part of the unpopulist right!
That was a party political broadcast on behalf of the Continuity Conservatives
If Was Streeting was serious in combating the threat from fascism his government shouldn’t been putting too much hardship on ordinary people and especially the lower income groups.
He should raise the rates of personal income tax on the highest bands and increase the tax threshold from £12,500 to £20,000 per annum taking part-timers, pensioners and low paid completely out of taxation altogether.
This will increase retail spending and start the economy growing again.
Sounds good on paper but beware. There will be a reluctance to take on a job that pays more than £20,000. That would mean a lot of people will be looking for and offered low paid, unskilled, zero hours contracts. Becoming cheap fodder for the capitalist system.
Barracking Wes Streeting when he’s giving it to Farage and populism seems a bit pointless considering their denial of climate change and opposition to net zero.
It was Labour who voted down the climate bill in Westminster this week.
As for Streeting the only progressive thing he is overseeing is a greater share for private sector in the NHS.
And who actually wants to privatise the NHS ? Farage.
Ask the PM and the donations he took from big oil. Before scrapping the green energy pledges he made when in opposition.
Talking of donations, when is Farage. going to step down so Reform can get its hands on Musk’s money? Foreign interference in our “sovereign country” and all that.
Wes Streeting. The man who took £125000 in donations from private health care lobbyists. Wes Streeting the man who is Health Secretary and 60% of the money he received from backers were private health care companies. Wes Streeting the man who help purge anyone left of center from the Labour Party. Wes Streeting the man who took £30000 from isreali backers. Wes Streeting the man whose fiance got a top job at Labour HQ. If Wes told me the sun was shining, I’d GP outside to check. He is just another red tory with his nose in the trough. Just… Read more »