Do voters really want the NHS to become a low quality backup service for those without insurance? - Andy Brown

There was a time when an obsession with ideology was something that was widespread on the left of the political spectrum whilst the right focused on common sense. These days the out of touch theorists tend to come from the far right.

So according to the wild and wonderful fantasies of Donald Trump Greenland is up for sale, Canada should become the 51st state, and Gaza would make a lovely place for a holiday resort.

Ludicrous and impractical ideas like these have consequences. Particularly when the people who put them forward have power. Does anyone with any sense of the practicalities seriously think that the people of Palestine are going to meekly leave the Gaza strip? Or that Egypt and Jordan are going to enthusiastically sign up to taking a couple of million resentful refugees? The only way to eject an entire population from land they consider their own is to either starve them out or to shoot those who don’t move and eject the rest at gun point. Does that sound like a great way to improve lives and secure peace in the Middle East?

Many of our own British political theorists have been very keen to side with Donald Trump. Nigel Farage, for example, participated enthusiastically in his US election campaign. For a backer of British sovereignty, he seemed remarkably keen on the prospect of taking millions of dollars in funding from the staggeringly rich foreigner Elon Musk. Meanwhile, Liz Truss has been very active in touring the US ‘think’ tanks earning hefty speaking fees for telling them what an act of genius her mini budget was and how badly she has been misunderstood.

You remember Liz Truss. She’s the one who crashed our economy and put up the cost of a heck of a lot of mortgages. She was doing what her theorists had told her was certain to work.

When she announced her deeply impractical budget Nigel Farage praised it as a great set of tax cutting measures. Neither he nor she seemed to have done much maths on where the money was coming from.

The markets took a more practical view and it wasn’t long before the pound was being sold off and interest rates were soaring in such alarming ways that she had to resign.

A similar failure to do the maths and look at the practicalities seems to lie behind many of the other extremist theories that are being pushed by Reform UK. I wonder how many of the people who are saying they would like to vote for that party have thought through the consequences or the costs of their policies on healthcare.

Take a look at their website and you will find some very bold promises. Nurses and doctors will pay no basic rate income tax for three years, every patient who doesn’t get a GP appointment within three days will get a voucher for private treatment, and there will be 20 per cent tax relief on all medical insurance as Britain moves to harness independent health care provision from the UK and overseas.

That probably sounds pretty bold and energetic to a lot of people who are looking for change from bland and boring mainstream politics. It is, however, a set of completely uncosted promises that would cost a fortune. That money would have to come from somewhere. It would almost certainly lead to a drastic hollowing out of funding from the mainstream NHS. Farage favours a private insurance model.

In the States that model has led to the single biggest cause of bankruptcy being illness. Elderly people and those with serious conditions struggle to get cover under a private insurance system. Thousands would live in fear that their treatment would stop if their insurance cover financial limit is reached. Do voters really want the NHS to become a low quality backup service for those without insurance?

Chillingly the Reform Party official policy website also calls for a public enquiry into vaccine harm. No responsible politician should be spreading fears about vaccines. The real danger is that people’s fears will drive them to stop utilising one of the most effective disease controls known to science. Polio is a thing of the past. TB clinics are a thing of the past. Smallpox is a thing of the past. Covid is under control.

Practical scientists achieved that. Let’s not allow irresponsible politicians to undermine their great work. Don’t make it so.

Andy Brown is the Green Party councillor for Aire Valley in North Yorkshire.