Sunday, June 23, 2024

 UK

Workers Can’t Wait – Public Ownership Now!

“With Thames and the other water companies performing so abjectly, no wonder that – far from being a fringe demand – public ownership of water is supported by mainstream public position.”

We’re in the middle of the deepest cost-of-living crisis in generations, which has become a permanent cost-of-living emergency for millions. Yet the whole political establishment seems intent on never-ending austerity.

As a new Government approaches, we need to mobilise for policies that could address the depth of the crises we face, including the 10 Workers Can’t Wait demands. To help build this campaign initiative, we are publishing a daily blog on the importance on each of these demands. Today, Matt Willgress looks at why we need public ownership to stop the corporate rip-off.

Not a week goes by without more stories about the scandals and problems besetting Britain’s private water companies, most notably the possible collapse of Thames Water, which is in deep financial trouble, despite taking billions out of the company in loans and dividends.

Disgracefully, it was revealed at the end of last year that Thames Water had pumped at least 72 billion litres of sewage into the Thames since 2020.

As the pop star campaigner on this issue Feargal Sharkey has put it, “Every river in this country is polluted.” And it’s the profiteering private water companies who are to blame.

With Thames and the other water companies performing so abjectly, no wonder that – far from being a fringe demand – public ownership of water is supported by mainstream public position. 69% supported nationalisation of water when asked by both Survation in 2022 and YouGov is 2023, and this number is now only likely to be growing.

The case for it is crystal clear. Water is a natural monopoly, there is no market for consumers – and that is why 90% of the world runs water in public ownership, including Scotland, where Scottish Water was never privatised.

Globally, 311 cities and 36 countries brought water back into public hands between 2000 and 2019.

In the example of water – and many other examples of privatisation – we see private companies making obscene profits from what should be public services ran for the people not profit. These massive sums of money could instead be invested to improve services, to give their workers a pay increase and to lower costs for consumers. In other words, everyone would win other than the polluters and profiteers.

Water nationalisation was established Labour Party policy for a number of years. But just as the situation in the real-world in recent years has made the need for this even more obvious, the front bench has moved further away from it, citing a “constrained fiscal environment”.

And as readers will know, this is the case with other parts of the economy too, including energy, where the Party leadership has made clear its intention to ignore Party Conference policy. Again, this is not to do with popularity – 66% support public ownership of energy.

Public ownership in this area is again just common sense, with privatisation leading to higher bills and colder homes.

Over 3 million households in England are experiencing fuel poverty, with 50% of those surveyed stating that they had turned off heating when it was still cold in order to save money.

The crises caused by soaring energy bills and the scandal of raw sewage being dumped into rivers have highlighted the failures of privatisation for millions in a very real way. And they have come on top of the problems after problems caused by railway privatisation over recent years and decades.

They also give the perfect opportunity to make the case for a fresh start and put the public interest ahead of private profit.

As the ‘Workers Can’t Wait’ demand reads in full, it’s time to “Stop the corporate rip-off,” with “public ownership of energy, water, transport, broadband and mail to bring bills down, end fuel poverty and lower public transport costs.“

This should be accompanied by “higher taxes on profits and the super-rich,” and in order to really tackle the greedy profiteers, it’s tied to “open the books [and] back the workers’ commission on profiteering.”

But we should expect little from Starmer, Reeves and Co. On this score, it has been clear for some time that, whatever pledges were made when running for leader, the current leadership have consistently prioritised staying in the good books of those who have done well for themselves out of the current mess, ahead of advancing the change we need.

Indeed, the shifts of Labour’s front-bench can’t be separated from its overall project of making sure the party becomes the “first eleven” for the economic establishment.

But, after the Tories are thankfully kicked out and a Labour Government formed in July, we shouldn’t see the position of any government as something automatically fixed.

A strong labour movement rooted in our communities and taking the right initiatives can force real change. One step towards that is the building the ‘Workers Can’t Wait’ campaign, using this election and the period afterwards to raise the demands which could begin to address the scale of the crises austerity economics have created.


 

Workers can’t wait – Defend & extend our right to organise!

“There is no mention in the Labour manifesto of repealing the restrictions on civil liberties that have been introduced in recent years.”

We’re in the middle of the deepest cost-of-living crisis in generations, which has become a permanent cost-of-living emergency for millions. Yet the whole political establishment seems intent on never-ending austerity.

As a new Government approaches, we need to mobilise for policies that could address the depth of the crises we face, including the 10 Workers Can’t Wait demands. To help build this campaign initiative, we are publishing a daily blog on the importance on each of these demands, with today Fraser McGuire looking at the need to “Defend and extend our right to organise.”

Our right to collectively organise has been decimated after 14 years of a malign Tory government which has worked tirelessly to attack the rights to take industrial action, organise in trade unions, and have the freedom of assembly and protest.

Unsatisfied with the effects of Thatcher’s assault on trade unions and workers, the last ten years have seen the government introduce of some of the most draconian laws designed to restrict the ability of workers to act and organise in the workplace. The Minimum Service Levels (MSL) Act undermines the democratic right of workers to take strike action, and the clearly politicised nature of the law can be seen in which sectors the government identified for MSLs to be implemented. The law would also put trade unions at risk of major claims for damages, following in the footsteps of the Thatcher government’s attempts to strip the assets and resources of the strongest trade unions.

Alongside the assault on our rights in the workplace, there has been a significant erosion of the right to freedom of assembly and the ability to protest the myriad of unjust laws passed in the last decade. As public anger swelled against austerity, the impacts of the cost-of-living crisis, and the British government’s complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza, police have been handed more powers to restrict protests and search, arrest, and fine individual protestors. The government’s own figures show that more than 650 protesters were arrested in 2023 under the new Public Order Act (2023).

In the past few weeks there have been increased arrests and physical attacks on students participating in peaceful protests and calling for universities to divest from arms companies complicit in the genocidal assault on Gaza. On the 23rd  of May 16 student protestors were arrested at the University of Oxford, and on the 27th Greater Manchester Police attempted to use physical force to evict students from a university building- only being stopped by hundreds of protestors surrounding the building.

The crackdowns on our right to organise must be understood as the reaction of an increasingly politically isolated government faced with the threat of growing popular mobilisation against austerity policies, global injustice, and inequality, combined with the uptick in workers taking strike action and building the profile of the trade union movement. The Workers Can’t Wait petition is vital, and the need for mobilising workers and communities around the transformative policies we need to address the depth of the crises we face has never been greater.

We must also recognise that the fight doesn’t stop with the possibility of the Labour Party coming into government in July- already unions have raised concerns about the dilution of the ‘New Deal for Working People’ especially in regarding the clear lack of enthusiasm from shadow cabinet MPs in repealing Tory anti-union legislation. Any attempt to undermine the right to organise must be resisted. There is no mention in the Labour manifesto of repealing the wider restrictions on civil liberties that have been introduced in recent years, and Labour’s record on opposing these Government attacks has been weak.

Without the ability to collectively organise- in the streets, in our communities, and in the workplace- none of us are safe. The biggest victories for workers have never materialised out of thin air, they have been won through struggle and collective organising across every part of society.

Workers Can’t Wait – Britain needs a pay-rise now!

“We need to reverse the shift in our national income back towards people’s wages.”

We’re in the middle of the deepest cost-of-living crisis in generations, which has become a permanent cost-of-living emergency for millions. Yet the whole political establishment seems intent on never-ending austerity.

As a new Government approaches, we need to mobilise for policies that could address the depth of the crises we face, including the 10 Workers Can’t Wait demands. To help build this campaign initiative, we are publishing a daily blog on the importance on each of these demands. Today, Ben Folley looks at why “Britain needs a pay rise.”

The first demand of the Workers Can’t Wait petition is that Britain needs a pay rise with good reason.

TUC analysis has repeatedly shown more than a lost decade of pay stagnation with real wages below their pre-2008 financial crash level. Staggeringly, the average UK worker would be £10,400 a year better off now if wage growth had continued at pre-2008 levelsThe Resolution Foundation backs this up – estimating the average worker would be £14,000 a year better off.  

For fourteen years, the Tories have carried out an ideological agenda of aggressively cutting public sector pay in real terms and in the wider economy they have nurtured insecure work as part of ‘austerity’. Yet at the same time, a few at the top continue to make millions, with CEO salaries and bonuses continuing to rise far outstripping their workers’ pay deals.

This has been an unprecedented period in lost wages – but should be seen within the context of how over the past fifty years a growing share of our national income has been transferred from wages to capital – or from people’s pay to private profits over the past fifty years.

The scale of the drop off in pay has enormous consequences for people’s standard of living and our society as a whole. The numbers living in poverty have grown, and the level of poverty has deepened, with the majority in households where someone works. As well as real levels of pay being cut, the sharp climb in the use of zero hours contracts and the spread of increasingly precarious, insecure and ever more exploitative forms of work has left many workers without even a reliable or consistent level of pay to meet rent and bills.

Our sick pay is so low that during the pandemic it was directly linked to our high death toll as workers were left unable to afford to isolate, and so caught and spread the virus. Rather than learn that lesson it remains at just £116.75 a week.

Summer 2022 saw the start of a significant increase in working days lost to industrial action, over the subsequent twelve months, as many workers took action to try and turn around the long period of real pay cuts they had suffered, made more acute by surging inflation – particularly in energy and food bills.

The Tories countered the upsurge in industrial action with yet another attack on people’s collective trade union and individual employment rights with the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023, the purpose of which is to effectively take away people’s right to strike.

Scrapping the restrictive legislation on trade unions and strengthening people’s employment rights is urgently needed. This would help to ensure a floor of decent work, pay, terms and conditions for all of us and enable people to enforce their rights and to improve their working lives. Poverty pay and exploitative work is damaging our society. As Larry Elliott said recently, the fact that labour is so cheap discourages firms from investing and in developing the skills of their workers so that they are truly flexible rather than easily dispensable.

Properly funding better pay, and pay increases, across our public services has become not just an urgent matter of achieving decent living standards for these workers, but one of a recruitment and retention staffing crisis for services such as health, education and social services and care.  Some left MPs have called for an inflation-proofed rise and a commitment to pay restoration over the next term of government. Despite that, there has been no commitment on pay restoration – even in principle – from the Labour frontbench, as Rachel Reeves sticks to her own fiscal rules that risk entrenching Tory austerity. The past fifty years has shown us it is not enough to just achieve economic growth – what matters is who benefits from that growth. We need to reverse the shift in our national income back towards people’s wages.

The Workers Can’t Wait campaign initiative is somewhere everyone can start. Sign it. Share it with friends. Take it to your local meeting. We need to raise its demands now and build, saying no to never-ending austerity.


 

Workers Can’t Wait – a right to food now!

“Britain should be striving to eliminate the need for food banks entirely.”

We’re in the middle of the deepest cost-of-living crisis in generations, which has become a permanent cost-of-living emergency for millions. Yet the whole political establishment seems intent on never-ending austerity.

As a new Government approaches, we need to mobilise for policies that could address the depth of the crises we face, including the 10 ‘Workers Can’t Wait’ demands. To help build this campaign initiative, we are publishing a daily blog on the importance on each of these demands. Today, Ben Hayes looks at the demand “For the right to food.”

The combination of rising prices and incomes depleted by low pay and years of social security being undermined has had a disastrous impact in communities across the country. Food costs have proved a particularly devastating example of this. The Trussell Trust found that over 11 million adults in Britain had experienced food insecurity over 2022-23 (a period which saw prices reach their highest levels in four decades), with 47% of households affected also including children. This has left all too many people reliant on institutions such as food banks, held together by dedicated and often overstretched volunteers. The number of emergency food supply parcels distributed has more than tripled over the last 10 years.

Networks such as this have felt the impact of the cost-of-living crisis themselves, with many having to buy in supplies due to donations not keeping pace with rapidly increasing demand and/or extending hours so that the growing proportion of users of the service in paid employment can pick up parcels on their way to work. As the Trussell Trust itself acknowledges, Britain should be striving to eliminate the need for food banks entirely, rather than forcing their expansion as a response to a frightening rise in demand.

As well as the hard work of those seeking to help provide ways of addressing the shocking material impact of the situation in the here and now, we need a policy agenda which tackles the causes of it head on. Nobody in our society should be left worrying about whether or not they can meet one of the most basic human needs –  especially in one of the world’s richest countries.

Right to Food (RTF) was launched in 2020 and emerged from the Fans Supporting Foodbanks initiative (a coalition of Everton and Liverpool supporters collecting donations at football matches in response to growing hunger in their local community), with MP for Liverpool West Derby Ian Byrne, himself a volunteer with this group, having championed the demands of the campaign in Parliament from day one. As well as enshrining a legal right to food provision, the measures proposed by RTF include universal free school meals, for government to explicitly state the proportion of income expected to be spent on food when setting the minimum wage and social security levels, the creation of Community Kitchens, and independent bodies to hold government to account on this issue.

The level of support the campaign has received is reflective both of the scale of the crisis it was set up in response to and the resonance of its programme, with MPs from various parties, trade unions and faith groups among those offering their support. Numerous bodies in local and devolved government have also begun taking up this agenda, with Mayor of London Sadiq Khan committing to continuing the policy of providing free meals to all primary school children in the capital as part of his successful re-election campaign last month. Both the city councils and Combined Authorities in Liverpool and Manchester have voted to become ‘Right to Food cities’, joining administrations including Rotherham, Brighton and Hove, St Helens, Preston, Lancaster, Durham, Newcastle, Portsmouth, Totnes, Coventry, Sheffield, Birmingham, Haringey, Brent, Lewisham, Lambeth, Hackney, Southwark, Islington, Cumberland and Southampton.

There is also potential for an alliance with public health campaigners over ensuring access to nutritious meals (with The Food Foundation finding that anyone in the most deprived fifth of the population would need need to spend half of their disposable income on food in order to meet the cost of a government-recommended healthy diet), as well as workers in the food industry: RTF was included as one of the demands of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union’s ‘Bakers’ Dozen’ manifesto.

It can undoubtedly be frustrating seeing how little the seriousness of this issue is being reflected in coverage around the upcoming general election. A question in the first televised leaders’ debate from audience member Paula, who discussed having started to cook multiple meals at once over fears about the costs of using her oven, provided a much-needed reminder of the reality for significant numbers of people in Britain today. Indeed, the Prime Minister acknowledged that “There’ll be millions of people watching this who feel in a similar position to you”: but regrettably, responses from both leaders were somewhat lighter on substantive plans to address situations like Paula’s than rehearsed soundbites shoehorned in.

However, a period where millions are more engaged with political debate than usual and prominent figures are subject to greater scrutiny is still an opportunity to build up pressure for change. The Labour Assembly Against Austerity has taken up the Right to Food in its ‘Workers Can’t Wait’ statement, which puts forward an agenda to tackle the cost-of living crisis- with the relevant section echoing calls to enshrine access to food as a legal right, the introduction of universal free school meals nationally and the creation of a National Food Service. The measures put forward on other areas (such as including strengthening wages, ending reactionary policies in relation to social security, implementing price controls and ensuring trade union freedom) are also important to addressing the relentless squeeze on living standards which is at the heart of hunger in Britain- with over 22,000 people now having signed up. It’s vital that we keep up the momentum and build support for this in the labour movement and beyond.


  • You can find the Worker’s Can’t Wait demands – and join over 22,000 in adding your support here.
  • We’re publishing a series of articles for each of the Workers Can’t Wait demands, you can find them as they are published here.



UK general election poll tracker: Daily roundup on how polls look for Labour


Keep up to date with the news on what the latest opinion polls say on the state of the parties, via our new 2024 UK general election polling tracker below.

We will be publishing the results of the main UK pollsters as they come out daily during the election campaignbookmark this page and keep checking back here to stay updated on how Labour, the Conservatives and other parties are doing.

UK

Labour receives more than £4.3m in donations in second week of election campaign

 the Conservatives attracted only £292,500.


Photo: Claudio Divizia/Shutterstock

Labour received more than ten times the amount of donations than the Conservatives in the second week of the election campaign, the Electoral Commission has revealed.

Data published by the organisation showed Labour received £4,383,400 in donations in the week from June 6 to June 12, while

The Tories fell behind Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats in donations that week. Farage’s party received £742,000 in donations over that week, with the Liberal Democrats receiving £335,000.

The largest donation Labour received in the second week of the campaign came from Lord David Sainsbury of Turville, with a donation of £2.5m. Lord Sainsbury broke the record for largest political donation in British history in 2019, donating £8m to the Liberal Democrats.

Other large donations to Labour included £900,000 from businessman Gary Lubner, £700,000 from investor Martin Taylor and £100,000 from ASLEF.

By contrast, the largest donations received by the Conservative Party were two £50,000 donations from cash and carry firm Bestway Wholesale and The Spring Lunch.

Reform UK received £500,000 from the firm Britain Means Business, whose director is Richard Tice – former party leader and Reform UK candidate for Boston and Skegness.

The Co-operative Party, which has an electoral pact with Labour, received donations totalling £60,000.


IFS: ‘Sharp cuts’ likely under Labour to justice system and further education


A leading think tank is warning Labour and other major parties are “silent on the inevitability of cuts” in their spending plans, with areas from courts and prisons to further education at risk of significant cutbacks.

A new report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies argues it is hard to meaningfully analyse parties’ spending commitments because they do not set out “department-by-department spending baselines”.

The IFS describes it as “essentially impossible to judge” what the funding presented in the manifestos “means for the actual funding individual public services might receive”.

This means that parties are effectively commit in their manifestos to “overall spending plans that imply sharp real-terms cuts to a range of areas, without spelling out where those cuts will fall or how they are to be achieved”, according to the widely respected think tank.

The report names several departmental spending areas unlikely to be protected from cuts, name-checking “courts, prisons and further education” as sectors which could face “cuts of between 1.9% and 3.5% each year, according to ‘baseline’ pre-manifesto spending totals.”

The IFS has been critical of Labour’s funding commitments before, arguing upon the release of the manifesto earlier this month that it offered “no indication” of how it would raise the funds to deliver “significant change”.

The think tank has already accused Labour and the other major parties of a “conspiracy of silence on the difficulties they would face” on public finances.

Labour was approached for comment.

Rishi Sunak’s threat to withdraw ‘access to finance’ for young people who refuse to do National Service hasn’t gone down well

“WHY DO THE TORIES HATE YOUNG PEOPLE SO MUCH?”


The Prime Minister’s threat last night, that young people who refuse to do National Service could lose access to finance, hasn’t gone down well.

Appearing at last night’s general election debate before a BBC audience, the Prime Minister once more reiterated his plans for a National Service which would see 18-year-olds volunteer with community groups or join the armed forces.

Pressed by presenter Fiona Bruce on how he would incentivise young people to take part, Sunak suggested the government will consider stopping young people having access to finance or drivers’ licences.

Sunak said: “Whether that is looking at driving licences, or their access to finance or all sorts of other things, that’s the right thing to do.”

However, his comments haven’t gone down well.

One social media user wrote: “Rishi Sunak says sanctions for not doing National Service could include driving licences” and “access to finance”. Completely Bonkers. He is dying on his feet.”

Another user posted on X: “Rishi Sunak suggests banning driving licenses and access to finance for young people as a way to punish those who don’t do National Service.

“WHY DO THE TORIES HATE YOUNG PEOPLE SO MUCH?”



Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
An immediate, bilateral ceasefire in Gaza is more urgent than ever

"Two states. Two peoples. Side by side. Living in peace."


21 June, 2024
LEFT FOOT FORWARD

The past 9 months have been some of the hardest of my professional career.

I will never forget the morning of October 7th. Waking up to those horrific reports of the most heinous violence. 1,200 souls, many of whom themselves fought for peace, killed in the most disgusting and degrading ways by Hamas.

I can only imagine the horror of that day and the horror still facing those waiting for news of their missing family members. There is no justification.

And nor is there justification of the horrors faced by millions of innocent Palestinian civilians who have lost their lives, been displaced from their homes, and endured famine and disease.

The scenes emerging from Rafah in recent weeks have been utterly horrifying. That Netanyahu described it as a “tragic mishap” minimises the obscene human cost of an operation that should never have happened.

In recent months, the narrative of “pick a side” has been dominant. Either you stand with the hostages and against Hamas, or you stand with Palestinians and against Netanyahu’s corrupt Government.

The Liberal Democrats and I reject this false dichotomy. This is time to dig deep into our compassion and humanity and if we are forced to pick a side, then we pick the side of peace.

Earlier this year I visited Israel and Palestine with a cross-party delegation of MPs. On the first day, we went down to the southern border with Gaza, to a place called Nativ Ha’asara.

We met an incredible Israeli peace activist called Roni who had lost family members on the 7th October — 16 people from that kibbutzim had perished.

Standing in one devastated community, I looked across at another, northern Gaza. I saw the plumes of smoke, I heard the drones and the “pop pop pop” of the gunfire, and I broke down. As I walked back through the village Roni took me to one side, gave me a hug and said, “I’m so sorry”. I said “I’m sorry too”. We both cried and held each other.

The loss of life, the humanitarian catastrophe, and the risk of regional escalation have gone on for far too long.

The Liberal Democrats have been calling for an immediate bilateral ceasefire since November 2023. We are clear that this is the only way to end the killing, to restore the flow of desperately needed humanitarian aid, and to get the hostages back to their loved ones.

But a ceasefire cannot just be a temporary pause in the fighting, because to press pause implies pressing play.

We need a ceasefire to open up space for political negotiations aimed at ultimately delivering that political solution: Hamas out of Gaza, two-states and a lasting peace. It will require pressure from the international community and from the UN.

Peace is going to take grit, creativity, and compromise. But the end product will be worth it.

As we work towards an enduring peace in the region, it is essential to look at the biggest blocks. And there is no doubt that the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank are a significant barrier.

The settlements are illegal under international law, undermine the viability of a two-state solution, and exacerbate tension.

The Liberal Democrats called for British trade with the illegal Israeli settlements to cease back in 2021. We’ve also called for the individual violent settlers who breach international law to be sanctioned. The Conservative government took some small steps, sanctioning some individual settlers, but there is so much further to go.

We have called for sanctions to include extremist Ministers Ben Gvir and Smotrich, as well as those connected entities who provide support or enable these extremist individuals. In practice, that means looking at the lawyers, the accountants, the businesses, the construction companies.

The UK has an incredibly important role to play in upholding the rule of international law on the world stage. I have been sorely disappointed that the government has sought instead to undermine both the ICJ and the ICC in their investigations. We must uphold the rights of these international courts to bring those responsible for appalling breaches of international law to justice, without fear or favour.

And we must ensure that we have our own house in order, and are not complicit in breaches of international law.

Since 2015 the Lib Dems have called for a policy of presumption of denial for arms exports to governments listed as Human Rights Priority Countries in the FCDO’s annual Human Rights and Democracy report. It is unacceptable that any British made weapons could be used against a civilian population anywhere in the world.

It has been widely reported that the UK Government has received legal advice that Israel’s actions in Gaza are not compliant with international humanitarian law. I have urged the Conservative government to publish any advice they have received for months but Ministers have consistently failed to do so, leaving the public in the dark.

If the Conservative Government received legal advice stating that Israel is not compliant with international humanitarian law, but Ministers are continuing to authorise arms exports, it raises a question about whether this would make the UK Government complicit in such breaches of international law. I referred Kemi Badenoch and David Cameron to the Ethics Adviser, urging them to open an investigation. Sadly they refused.

The most important step the UK could take to advance the cause of peace is to immediately recognise the state of Palestine, based on 1967 borders.

We have a historical wrong to right here.

So we must follow suit behind our allies like Ireland, Norway and Spain and recognise Palestine as an independent state. While recognition is not a panacea, it sends a powerful message that we stand by the Palestinian people and that we will do everything we can to help safeguard both the state of Israel, and the state of Palestine.

Two states. Two peoples. Side by side. Living in peace.

That is the future the Liberal Democrats believe in, and the future we will continue to fight for.



Layla Moran is the Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Spokesperson


Image credit: Number 10 Downing Street – Creative Commons

Giant mural brands Nigel Farage an ‘enemy of the NHS’ in campaign trail message

21 June, 2024
Left Foot Forward 

The Reform UK leader was delivered a message by campaigners on his visit to Blackpool



Nigel Farage was delivered a giant message in the sand on his visit to Blackpool this week during his campaign trail, as a reminder of Farage’s thoughts on the NHS and Vladimir Putin.

Political campaign group Led By Donkeys created a giant mural on the beach of Blackpool depicting the Reform UK leaders head alongside the message “Nigel Farage friend of Putin enemy of the NHS”.

Farage has repeatedly expressed support for a private healthcare system and said the NHS should be abolished in its current form. The Brexiteer has stated his desire to change the model of the NHS and has previously pushed for a move towards an insurance-based system.

During a BBC phone-in last week Farage reiterated his admiration for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin as “a clever political operator.”

Farage said: “You can recognise the fact that some people are good at what they do even if they have evil intent.”

The former UKIP leader has in the past named Putin as the world leader he most admired.

Farage is now campaigning as the candidate for the far-right Reform party in the constituency of Clacton where he hopes to become MP.

As he continues to feature more and more in the media since his shock entry as a candidate in the general election campaign, Farage’s many unsavoury comments are being resurfaced. For example the Guardian reported today quotes from a podcast appearance he made in February, in which Farage praised the misogynist influencer Andrew Tate as an “important voice.”


Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward