The Threat is Brexit
The NHS is under pressure across the UK and there is one major issue behind why it is facing such pressure – Brexit.
In the 2016 referendum, the Leave campaign promised that Brexit would deliver £350 million per week for the NHS. They put it on the side of a bus.
Compare that promise to the headlines over just the past year on how Brexit has affected our NHS:
- Brexit has failed NHS, say Britons: Poll – Guardian, 30 December 2023
- Post-Brexit nurse shortage costs the NHS £61 million per year – EurekAlert, 5 December 2023
- NHS patients hit by ‘severe drug shortages’ due to Brexit red tape – Independent, 5 November 2023
- Majority of UK physicians believe Brexit aggravated NHS staff shortage crisis – GlobalData, 1 May 2023
- Brexit three years on: Health and the NHS are still suffering – British Medical Journal, 31 January 2023
- Brexit has worsened shortage of NHS doctors, analysis shows – Guardian, 7 November 2022
It’s not a pretty picture. Brexit has been a disaster for the NHS in all parts of the UK.
And Brexit is already undermining devolution, which, we were told in the 1997 referendum, would protect Scotland’s NHS from unwanted Westminster policies. Particularly Tory policies, which Scotland hasn’t voted for in almost a lifetime.
For example, the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 sets out “market access” rules for goods and services, limiting the power of the Scottish Parliament to make distinctive policy for Scotland in devolved areas. It gives Westminster government ministers the powers to remove ”healthcare services” from an exemption list, without the consent of the Scottish Parliament.
And in January 2021, the Westminster Tory government blocked legislation that would have protected the NHS from future trade deals by ripping out NHS protections from their Trade Bill. Another example of Westminster riding roughshod over Scotland’s elected representatives. So much for the respect and equal partnership they promised in the 2014 independence referendum.
But it doesn’t end there. In July 2020, the Tory government blocked legislation that would have required the consent of devolved administrations for their health services to be included in any future trade deals.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that, with Brexit having such a corrosive effect on the NHS, the Labour party would be desperate to reverse this. Unfortunately, under Sir Keir Starmer, Labour is too scared of offending right-wing Brexiteers:
- Keir Starmer embraces Brexit slogan with ‘take back control’ pledge – BBC News, 5 January 2023
- Starmer ends Labour silence on Brexit as he rules out rejoining single market – The Guardian, 4 July 2022
You might also think that recent events – with polls showing overwhelming majorities saying Brexit is a failure – would shake Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour into support for rejoining the EU. But it is not to be, with his transport spokesperson recently giving a “cast-iron guarantee” that the Labour party will not take the UK back into the EU.
This in the face of recent commentary by the UK’s pre-eminent medical journal The Lancet, which says that Brexit’s “dampening effect” on the economy “indirectly affects population health through less funding for social and health services”; that “Brexit has made recruitment more difficult” within the NHS; and that “Brexit has been a failure from a health perspective” that “puts health in the UK in a precarious position”.
With Labour’s Scotland spokesperson indicating that a Labour government won’t reverse the Tories’ power grab on devolved powers, what could such interference in these powers mean for the NHS in Scotland?
Some more recent headlines offer a flavour of what UK Labour’s health spokesperson plans for the NHS:
- Labour would ‘hold the door open’ for private sector in NHS, says Wes Streeting – The i, 17 November 2023
- Inside Labour’s plan to open up NHS to private ‘entrepeneurs’ – The i, 29 December 2023
- Labour’s commitment to NHS questioned as Streeting takes cash from private health investor – Express, 20 June 2023
Yet we know what private outsourcing in England has already meant for the NHS:
But as well as supporting Tory Brexit and Tory private outsourcing in the NHS, Labour now copy Tory tax and spending plans. In short, with Brexit already damaging the NHS, Labour offers no alternative to protecting Scotland’s health service.
This can be seen in how Westminster parties don’t value free prescriptions in Scotland. In England, prescriptions cost £9.65 per visit. In Scotland they’re free. The SNP abolished this tax on ill health.
However, keeping free prescriptions protected in Scotland cannot be taken for granted. Again, you would be forgiven for thinking Labour would protect free prescriptions – but past and recent comments paint a different picture.
Every year since election to government, the SNP has shown its commitment to free prescriptions and abolished them. We value this policy. But, since 2007, Scottish Labour have criticised the policy – with a former Labour leader describing it as “something for nothing”, and their current health spokesperson even indicating they would bring back prescription charges.
Labour is taking Scotland for granted. They think you won’t consider their support for Brexit and how it is undermining the NHS, and that their attacks on free provision of medicine will go unnoticed.
Brexit is damaging our NHS. The Tories imposed it and Labour now support it. But there is a way to escape the threat from Westminster parties wedded to Brexit.
A vote for the SNP is a vote for independence, and independence will give Scotland the power to reverse Brexit and rejoin the EU to protect the NHS.
If you value the NHS, there’s only one party in Scotland to vote for to reverse Brexit and protect the NHS – the SNP.
