Keir squirms in grilling on NHS U-turn
SIR Keir Starmer was left squirming yesterday as he struggled to explain major policy U-turns over Brexit and the NHS.
The Labour leader was visibly uncomfortable as he was questioned over his previous pledges to defend EU free movement and ban the NHS from using private sector capacity.
In his 2020 leadership campaign to succeed Jeremy Corbyn, Sir Keir set out ten pledges to win support from Left-wing activists and the unions, including a vow to ‘end outsourcing in our NHS’.
But in an interview with Sky’s Sophy Ridge yesterday, the Labour leader said he now
wanted to see ‘more’ use of the private sector by the NHS. Challenged over his previous pledge, he said outsourcing in some areas had not been ‘very effective’, but insisted that the private sector had always had a role to play.
On Brexit, Sir Keir’s campaign pledges included one to ‘defend free movement as we leave the EU’. But he told the Mail on Sunday in November restoring free movement was now a ‘red line’ he would not cross.
And last week he said Labour would bring forward a Take Back Control Bill to deliver on the promise of the referendum. Challenged over his policy flip-flop yesterday, Sir Keir suggested his previous pledge applied to the process of leaving the EU, even though it was made in February 2020, a fortnight after the UK left.
A Tory spokesman said Sir Keir’s changing positions ‘prove he’ll say anything if the politics suits him’. And his comments also angered some Labour supporters. Prominent activist Owen Jones said: ‘This is shameless stuff… Labour members understood “end outsourcing in the NHS” to be the diametric opposite of what Starmer is proposing.’
SIR Keir Starmer carps relentlessly about Conservative failures to tackle the problems blighting the country.
From a collapsing NHS to rising crime, he insists Labour would do better if elected.
In that case, why won’t he tell us his solutions to the big issues? The plain fact is, he has no answers, beyond tired classenvy proposals to abolish non-dom status and impose VAT on private schools.
Yesterday, he squirmed on being challenged to explain U-turns on major pledges to defend EU free movement and stop the NHS using private medical care. He has nothing to say on housing and positively recoils at questions on immigration.
Given he’s 20 points ahead in the polls, Sir Keir clearly feels he can win the next election by default. Yet voters may notice that Silent Starmer is taking them for fools.