A whole host of celebrities have given their backing to ‘Your NHS needs you,’ a DiEM25 campaign to block a Tory ‘health bill’ that will effectively make it a whole lot easier for the government to sell the NHS off to large, profit driven, American companies who work on an insurance based model. The campaign is backed by Unite Union, the Communication Workers Union, the Peace & Justice Project, EveryDoctor (a doctor-led campaigning organisation) and a number of major disability groups.
Campaigners have been trying to raise awareness of the creeping privatisation of the NHS for some time now but the recent pandemic has helped to sharpen public focus onto the current state and fragility of the NHS. In August this year, Led by Donkeys produced an explosive video in collaboration with the Good Law Project (a not-for-profit legal campaign organisation that fights cases where there have been perceived abuses of power, exploitation, inequality or injustice) raising the alarm about “a secret back channel” and revealed how government ministers had been prioritising private companies linked to Tory donors when handing out NHS contracts and that many of these companies had little to no medical background and had subsequently delivered cheap substandard equipment (some of which was so bad it could not even be used). Never the less, these companies, they explain, still managed to pocket huge amounts of tax-payer’s money…
Of course there have been many voices who have been trying, for years, to raise awareness of what’s actually going on behind the scenes. Unfortunately, the corporate media have been colluding with the Tories and with right wing factions within the Labour Party to silence these voices. One of the most prominent campaigner’s for saving the NHS is Jeremy Corbyn who has been subjected to an incessant campaign, over many years, to discredit him. Anyone paying closer attention will have noticed that the people working to discredit Corbyn rarely tackled the concerns that he was raising. Instead, they would carefully mis-direct peoples attention away from the arguments he was making by repeatedly making false claims against him. This allowed the right to keep the focus on Corbyn and away from policies and any sensitive issues that would have been extremely damaging for them. Here’s Jeremy, when he was still leader of the Labour Party, telling everyone at a Labour Party conference that the government was planning to sell off the NHS and were already in secret negotiations with their US counterparts…
The ‘Your NHS needs you’ campaign is now calling on people to show their support for the NHS by taking action to try and block the “Tory St’health Bill.” They’ve put together a 5 point action plan that they hope will send a loud message to government ministers and to local MPs that the NHS is not for sale and that the st’health bill must not be allowed to stand…
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Sign and share their petition
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Email your MP. You can find a message template: HERE
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Tweet politicians (see below for a list of primary targets)
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Donate to defend the NHS
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Alert your friends by sharing the celebrity video and encouraging them to take these 5 actions to save the NHS. When sharing, please remember to include the #YourNHSNeedsYou hashtag, the campaign’s @YourNHS2021 Twitter handle and their www.yournhsneedsyou.com web address.
Here are some of the politicians you might like to tweet…
Boris Johnson (Prime Minister):
@BorisJohnson
Sajid Javid (Secretary of State for Health):
@sajidjavid
The Conservative Party (Official Account):
@Conservatives
Keir Starmer (Labour leader):
@Keir_Starmer
Jonathan Ashworth (Shadow Health Secretary):
@JonAshworth
Labour Party (official account):
@UKLabour
Tweet template if you need it..
Stop privatising the NHS by stealth! The Health Bill locks in corporate control. Experts warn that, if it passes, lives will be lost and families bankrupted by health costs. I can’t vote for a party that supports this. #YourNHSNeedsYou! https://bit.ly/3vvq3n3
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