Tory MP and ex-health minister defects to Labour
manchestereveningnews.co.ukA Tory MP and former health minister has defected to Labour saying the Conservative Party has become a 'nationalist party of the right' that is failing the health service.
Dr Dan Poulter, a working medic, has quit Rishi Sunak’s party claiming that he could no longer “look my NHS colleagues in the eye” as a Conservative.
He will take the Labour whip until the general election but will not be running again as the MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, he wrote in the Observer.
Dr Poulter told the newspaper the Conservative Party “feels like it has become a nationalist party of the right”, having seen a “rightward drift” since David Cameron left Downing Street in 2016. “The health service has ceased to be an area of priority for the Conservative Party, and that is now showing in the strain on the front line and the deterioration of care for patients,” he said. READ MORE: Greater Manchester soap was meant to take on EastEnders - but only lasted a year He added that he had come to the conclusion that “the only cure is a Labour government”, and that he would support Sir Keir Starmer and shadow health secretary Wes Streeting before and after the general election on NHS policy.
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