Angela Rayner’s new laws are ‘opening the door’ to NHS strikes that threaten patients
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner (Image: Getty)
The British Medical Association has become a militant force that no longer represents the best interests of patients and many doctors. Its repeated strike action has turned the NHS into a political playground, where ordinary people pay the price through cancelled operations, missed appointments and dangerously overstretched wards.
These strikes are not about fairness or dialogue, they are about power. The BMA’s leadership is pursuing a political agenda, waging ideological war on the health service. This is union overreach of the highest order. When doctors abandon the frontline for the picket line, it is a direct threat to patient care.
Labour is enabling this chaos. One of Keir Starmer’s first acts in government was to capitulate to the BMA’s demands, handing out inflation-busting pay rises without securing a single reform in return. The message from Wes Streeting was clear – militant behaviour is rewarded.
Now, Angela Rayner’s radical Employment Rights Bill will go even further, stripping away the few remaining safeguards that protect the public. She plans to scrap the 50 per cent turnout threshold for strike ballots, allowing union action to proceed with minimal support.
This opens the door to more disruption, not just in the NHS, but across every part of the public sector.
Labour’s outrage over the BMA strikes is deeply disingenuous. If they truly cared about public services, or the people who rely on them, they would tear up this extreme union charter immediately. Instead, Angela Rayner is dragging Britain back to the chaos and dark days of the 1970s.
That’s why the Conservative Party is stepping up with a clear plan. Under Kemi Badenoch’s leadership, we will legislate to ban widespread strike action by doctors, like police officers and soldiers, and ensure minimum service levels across the healthcare service. These reforms are about protecting patients and restoring order to a system that millions rely on.
I’ve worked in the hospice sector, and I know what’s at stake. Families need the NHS to be there in times of crisis. No one should have to suffer because a militant union is flexing its muscles.
Labour has chosen union appeasement. Only the Conservatives are offering leadership, reform and a health service that puts patients first.
Rachel Reeves’ fiscal reforms ‘could trigger 2008-style economy meltdown’
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves delivers a keynote speech. (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Rachel Reeves’ proposed fiscal reforms risk dragging the UK back into a financial disaster similar to the 2008 crisis, a financial expert has warned. Bob Lyddon cautions that the Chancellor’s so-called Leeds Reforms dismantle vital protections put in place after the last meltdown — and dangerously rewrite the narrative around Labour’s role in causing it.
According to Mr Lyddon, founder of Lyddon Consulting Services, Ms Reeves’s strategy is not just about cutting “red tape” to boost growth, as she claims, but represents a deliberate erasure of the lessons from the past. He told Express.co.uk: “The Leeds Reforms are a reinforcement of the denial that Labour Party policies, designed by Gordon Brown, seeded the UK version of the 2007–8 financial crisis.” Ms Reeves has repeatedly boasted of stability under Labour, notably in her 2024 Mais Lecture hosted by City St George’s, UCL, when she declared: “For a decade, the last Labour Government offered stable politics alongside a stable economic environment.”
He concluded: “She’s encouraging the financial industry to spin the big wheel again. But this time the UK economy is already on fragile footing — and the taxpayer could be left holding the bill again.”
Ms Reeves has defended the reforms as a bold recalibration of outdated post-crisis regulation.
Speaking recently, she said: “We are fundamentally reforming the regulatory system, freeing up firms to take risks and to drive growth.
“We have placed financial services at the heart of the Government’s growth mission… with a ripple effect that will drive investment in all sectors of our economy.
“Regulators must resist excessive caution and boldly regulate for growth. The Leeds Reforms will create a more dynamic, competitive financial system that works for the whole country.”
