Jess Phillips’s two-tier healthcare

We have become accustomed to the ‘two-tier policing’ of protests, where ‘pro-Palestine’ demos are exempted from Britain’s usually stringent hate-speech laws. Islamist and anti-Semitic protesters have been free to call for a violent ‘jihad’, to demand the genocidal destruction of Israel and to wave banners with swastikas, without any fear of being clamped down on by police. Now we might be seeing the emergence of ‘two-tier healthcare’, where opposition to Israel can get you bumped up to the front of an NHS waiting list.

Jess Phillips, Labour MP and Keir Starmer’s safeguarding minister, last night told an audience of north London theatregoers about a recent visit to A&E. After having difficulty breathing, she went to her local Birmingham hospital. She described the overcrowding she found there as akin to a ‘war zone’. Luckily for her, she was whisked to the front of the queue.

Apparently, a Palestinian doctor not only recognised Phillips as the local Labour MP, but also thanked her for opposition to Israel. ‘He was sort of like, “I like you. You voted for a ceasefire”. [Because of that] I got through quicker’, she admitted. Her political views, in other words, allowed her to receive preferential treatment.

I don’t know what’s more damning: that this took place or that Phillips gladly blabbed about it. Following her downplaying of Islamist thugs menacing journalists in her constituency, the Member for Birmingham Yardley already looks set to be a constant source of unwitting revelations for the media, and a constant PR headache for this already faltering Labour government.

Fraser Myers is deputy editor at spiked and host of the spiked podcast. Follow him on X: @FraserMyers.