Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer ‘has proven very adept at putting his fingers in his ears and whistling’ 

• UNDER constituent pressure and, as the reliable CNJ is encouraging citizens to do, Sir Keir Starmer has written to local “health chiefs” querying the latest GP takeover, (The great GP surgery takeover, February 18).

Such moves can be useful spanners in the works. But more importantly, the CNJ quotes a CCG, clinical commissioning group, member saying: “the way we can tackle this now is by influencing the shape of legislation”.

As a politician and party leader with a legal background Sir Keir has a duty, beyond local interventions, to confront and speak up about the national restructuring that has been tailoring services across England for the likes of Centene, reproducing the business model it and other companies benefit from under Medicare in the USA.

In fact, the CEO of Centene’s UK subsidiary has led on this restructuring, in a previous role as NHS England director! (Health Service Journal, 2018).

At the heart of this restructuring is a US system of financial incentives to make cuts, which – CNJ please note with the GP takeover in mind – are precisely what “accountable” or “integrated” care actually means.

So even before the local takeover, these incentives have been limiting what companies like our American friend are now able to provide to us, the public.

In the works is a planned 80 per cent national reduction in local GP services in favour of more profitable, distant “superhubs” (Telegraph, 2017), and the option of employing cheaper staff (on the same US model) that’s increasingly denying us our right to see a doctor in the first instance.

Let’s awaken the CNJ and journalist Tom Foot’s strong record of working with communities to oppose this approach when New Labour pursued it under the guise of “polyclinics”, (The great polyclinics rebellion, CNJ, June 12 2008).

Matt Hancock has just announced that a similar repurposing of our health service will be the object of coming legislation. This is not privatisation by stealth; it is just privatisation.

Supported by Camden’s constituency Labour parties, the party Sir Keir leads has voted three years in a row at conference to oppose such a policy outright when the time came.

That time is now. But will the Labour Party’s “new management” continue the approach of the Jeremy Corbyn era? We in Camden Momentum suspect not.

We do have some praise for Sir Keir though: since becoming Labour leader, he has proven very adept at putting his fingers in his ears and whistling.

Come the next election, voters should judge Sir Keir and Labour not by the logic of “lesser evilism” (“at least they’re not as bad as the Tories”), but by whether the party is willing to fight for a publicly-owned National Health Service.

There needs to be a sea-change in Labour’s current do-nothing spinelessness, and a change of leadership.

DEEPA GOVINDARAJAN DRIVER,
Chair, Camden Momentum,
OWEN HOLLAND, vice-chair,
SHEZAN RENNY, data officer,
PAUL RENNY, BRIDGET DUNNE, NICO C, MARY O’SULLIVAN, REBEKAH BALL, KUMIKO SHIMIZU, CAROLYN GELENTER, DIANE PEARSON, MIKE BARON, MARIE LYNAM, PETE ROBBINS, ANDREW FEINSTEIN, LUCY MOY-THOMAS, SARA CALLAWAY, GARETH MURPHY, LINDA SAYLE, STEPHEN KAPOS, HARRIET EVANS, FRAN HERON, SAM WEINSTEIN, SJ CAMPBELL, BEN MANSILLA-CAMPBELL, NICK WEAVER