Austerity Is Part of a Plan to Privatize the NHS
Decades of austerity have undermined Britain’s National Health Service, leading to staffing shortages and longer wait times. It’s a pretext for handing off more and more of the system to profiteering corporations.
A UK nurse holds the hand of a young patient in an ambulance, June 16, 2023. (Jonathan Brady / PA Images via Getty Images)
In the UK today, it’s hard to avoid the sense that everything is falling apart. Rents and bills are soaring, real wages are falling, and public services are crumbling. Homelessness and violent crime are on the rise, while public spaces are falling into disrepair. And all of this is taking place in the context of a climate emergency.
This decimation of our public infrastructure was one of the central aims of the neoliberal movement that came to dominate British politics with the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979.
Publicly owned infrastructure and services were privatized on the cheap, with capital gains accruing to those who were able to buy shares, boosting public support for the move. Private ownership came with higher prices and less investment as ever-more cash was sucked out of utilities and transport networks to boost private profits.
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