Thursday 8 February 2018

Theresa May is on a mission to defeat the NHS


On Wednesday February 7th 2018 Theresa May was asked a point-blank yes/no question about whether she would guarantee that opening up the NHS to US health corporations would be excluded from the scope of any post-Brexit trade negotiations with the United States.

Her response was to totally evade the question with a load of lamentable bluster about "getting the best possible deal for the United Kingdom".

For a woman who seems to absolutely love drawing red lines when it comes to negotiations with the European Union, it may seem a bit odd that she's unwilling to draw a red line with the United States in order to protect the NHS.

But then later that day Theresa May had an extraordinary rant in which she claimed to be "on a renewed mission to fight and win the battle of ideas, and to defeat socialism".

The problem here is that the NHS is a fantastic working example of socialism in action because the core NHS principle of prioritising health care to those who need it the most, rather than those who can most afford to pay for it, is undeniably socialism.


So when Theresa May declares that she's on a mission to "defeat socialism", you'd have to be the worst kind of political illiterate to fail to understand that defeating socialism entails privatisation of the NHS and the abolition of the socialist policy of prioritising health care towards those who need it the most, regardless of their ability to pay.

Theresa May's express intention to "defeat socialism" and her point-blank refusal to rule out a carve-up of the NHS for the benefit of giant US health corporations are inextricably linked.

They're linked by her absolute fixation with extremely unpopular and fanatically right-wing neoliberal economic dogma.


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