A Vote Leave video from 2016 has been making the rounds on social media again, and it has not painted Brexit in a good light – especially when it comes to the NHS.
With nurses going on strike for the first time in the institution’s history and the NHS backlog reaching historic levels, there’s no doubt that the pressures on the service right now are affecting health and care right across the country.
The British Medical Association even accused prime minister Rishi Sunak of making a “political choice” to let patients die on Monday instead of reforming the entire NHS.
On December 31, political commentator Marina Purkiss retrieved a campaign video from the archives showing that the pro-Brexit campaign groups had once vowed that the NHS would benefit from life outside of the EU.
And let’s just say, the video depicts a stark contrast to where we are now.
The clip begins with an elderly woman looking tearful as she’s led into her local A&E by a companion, before splitting into two screens: one showing life inside the EU and one showing life outside the EU.
Both angles then show the same hospital waiting room – but the one supposedly portraying UK life inside the EU is much busier, with queues to the front desk and many more miserable faces from other patients.
The “outside the EU” clip shows a doctor coming to treat the elderly woman at the same point when the “inside the EU” video shows her only just sitting down inside the cramped waiting room for the first time.
While reception flick through notes as the patient becomes increasingly distressed in the waiting room – in the scenario where the UK is still in the EU – she appears to be effectively treated for the “outside the EU” clip, with tests thoroughly conducted before she walks out of hospital happily.
These comparisons continue for a whole minute and a half, before a message appears: “Our NHS is at breaking point.
″Every week the UK pays £350 million to be part of the EU. That’s £350 million that could build one new hospital every week. £350 million that could be spent supporting our doctors and nurses.
“Now is your chance to take back control and spending our money on our priorities, like the NHS. Vote leave on 23 June.”
Purkiss’s clip was seen more than a million times in the first three days of January.
Flash forward six and a half years (and one completed Brexit) later, and the NHS appears to be on its last legs, as Twitter was keen to point out.
It’s also worth remembering that prominent Eurosceptic Nigel Farage even complained that “Britain is broken” back in December – only for Twitter to ask him who broke it.