UNISON’S healthcare conference in Edinburgh ended with a resounding call today to fight both the far-right and NHS privatisation.

Delegates spoke frankly about the challenges posed by the far-right and its electoral expression, Reform, with Leo Karen of the Young Members Forum citing polling which suggests as many as 30 per cent of union members and 10 per cent of union reps have considered voting for the party.

Urging delegates not to write people off, but to engage, he said: “We need to talk facts about what Reform would do to our NHS.

“We need to organise in our workplace and communities. This is our task, and it cannot be outsourced.”

Some of those facts include Nigel Farage’s support for the private US model of healthcare, a model rejected by Yasmine Morgan of Fife Health Branch after hearing the experiences of friends forced to live with it.

“One of my friends told me she was saving up for her braces,” she said: “She was 26 years old.

“Imagine having to save up for such a simple healthcare procedure and for such a simple thing that we take for granted here, that’s the reality that we are looking at.

“We are looking at potentially tens of thousands of pounds to have a child, we’re looking at thousands of pounds for minor procedures, this is going to hurt our pockets, it’s going to hurt the working class.

“There is no benefit at all from any type of outsourcing or private contracting, we’ve seen that with private finance initiatives, we’ve seen that with Palantir.

“As soon as the purpose is profit and not people it goes in the wrong direction.”