Nigel Farage hit back at Wes Streeting in a blistering takedown after the health secretary called him a “miserablist declinist.”
The Reform UK leader accused Mr Streeting of “lying” and being “scared” of his party and pedalling lies regarding its views on the NHS during his speech at a Fabian Society conference.
The health secretary said Mr Farage represented the threat posed by the “populist right” and that his party used “the failure of our public service” as a “fertiliser for the populism we see across liberal democracies.”
The Clacton MP retaliated on X: “Wes Streeting is so scared of Reform that he has now resorted to lying about our plans for the NHS. Let me be clear, the NHS will always be free at the point of delivery under a Reform Government.”
Mr Streeting added that improving the NHS would remove “the conditions where the populist right thrives”.
He said: “The populist right are coming for us, and we need to be serious about beating them. 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 the point of use. That’s a poverty of ambition for our country, and Labour utterly rejects it.”
This comes after Mr Farage suggested that the NHS could switch to an insurance-based model like the one used in France to make it more efficient.
These can be social insurance systems, where everyone is required to contribute, or private insurance systems, where individuals choose to purchase insurance.
In 2014, Mr Farage said the UK must “think about healthcare very, very differently … I think we are going to have to move to an insurance-based system of healthcare”.
Earlier this month he told The Times: “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.”
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch also previously told the outlet that the country isn’t ready for an NHS overhaul, which would require “a serious cross-party, national conversation”.
She said: “I don’t think we are ready for changing the principle of free at the point of use, certainly not immediately. If we are going to reform things like that, I think we need to have a serious cross-party, national conversation.”
