Hard-Left junior doctors ‘try to seize BMA’

Group faces allegations of running a covert online smear campaign aimed at taking over the union

THE group of hard-Left junior doctors behind the worst strikes in NHS history has been accused of running a “smear campaign” to engineer the takeover of the British Medical Association (BMA).

Junior doctors are under mounting pressure to end their long-running pay dispute after consultants settled their industrial action last week.

The juniors are seeking a 35 per cent rise and have voted for six more months of industrial action.

Now a secretive organisation called Doctors Vote led by militant junior doctors has posted a barrage of online comments accusing long-standing union officials of “corruption”, among a slew of unproven allegations including that BMA officials were unelected.

Insiders fear that this may be part of a long-term plot to seize control and drag the BMA further to the Left. Should they take power, the group may use continued industrial action to campaign against even a Labour government led by Sir Keir Starmer, whom they regard as insufficiently radical on the NHS.

The social media activity took place in the context of elections within the BMA’s local divisions to decide who represents them at this June’s Annual Representative Meeting (ARM).

Sources at the top of the union fear this has gone hand in glove with “rampant entryism”, whereby a small group of about 100 radical doctors have taken advantage of the online voting system to elect hard-Left candidates, despite not being entitled to vote because they are not local. Internal estimates predict that Doctors Vote controls at least 70 per cent of the voting power at the forthcoming ARM.

In one video, Dr Robert Laurenson, co-chair of the Junior Doctors Committee, alleged that BMA business was conducted “down in the pubs and golf clubs”.

The BMA acknowledged it had asked for various social media posts to be removed, but said this did not include videos. It did not address the allegations of entryism in divisional elections.

“It may be too late to stop making the BMA unrecognisable from the organisation it was,” said one senior source.

“The risk is that it fundamentally changes the way the public views doctors in this country.”

It is feared that, with full control of the union, Doctors Vote and its sympathisers may move to join the TUC, a proposal the BMA has previously rejected out of a desire to appear apolitical.

Long-standing elected officials, who serve part-time alongside their main jobs in the NHS, also fear a change to the rules that would automatically force anyone who had served more than 12 years on a committee to step down.

“It’s a clearing out,” said a different source, who was recently voted off his local committee after dozens of unknown doctors logged into a meeting and called for a vote of no confidence.

“Many of us have warned the BMA leadership about what is happening but they’re scared of the junior doctors.”

A BMA spokesman said: “The BMA is committed to open democratic processes.”