Sir Keir Starmer should follow the lead of Donald Trump and leave the World Health Organisation (WHO), one of the agency’s former advisers has claimed.
The guidance has come as Labour has ramped up its funding for the organisation in November, investing up to £310million in core funds to support its “general programme of work and its transformation agenda”.
Previously, in 2022, the UK shelled out $123million to the WHO’s Core Voluntary Contributions Account – which permits the organisation to decide how the funds are spent.
Ex-adviser Professor Karol Sikora has now urged Starmer to be spurred on by Trump’s departure from the WHO last week.
Ex-adviser Professor Karol Sikora has now urged Starmer to be spurred on by Trump’s departure from the WHO last week
PA
Taking to Twitter, the oncologist declared: “The UK should follow Trump’s lead and withdraw from the WHO.
“I’ve seen it from the inside as the director of the WHO cancer programme. It stinks. No real reform is possible.
“It is not serving Britain well, we should leave.”
The UN’s intergovernmental organisation serves to achieve the highest level of health for everyone, as it has defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”.
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Among a long list of executive orders, Donald Trump authorised the departure of the US from the WHO, noting the mishandling of the Covid pandemic as well as other international health crises.
He has since lamented over America sending more funds to the agency than China – which has a much larger population.
The executive order was Donald Trump’s second endeavour to withdraw the nation from the WHO – made within hours of entering the White House for the second time.
At his first rally since his inauguration, he claimed that the agency had “ripped off” America, saying: “We paid $500 million a year, and China paid $39 million a year, despite a much larger population.”
The President toyed with the idea of rejoining the agency at a later date
REUTERS
However, more recently, the 47th President toyed with the idea of rejoining the agency at a later date – mere days after he signed the executive order to begin the departure.
“Maybe we would consider doing it again. I don’t know. Maybe we would have to clean it up a little bit,” Trump suggested at a Las Vegas rally.
“But China pays $39million for 1.4 billion [people], and we’re paying $500million for 325 million [people]. What the hell is wrong with these people?”
The President, 78, listed just a few of his executive orders that he had signed since the start of his second presidential term, insisting that his action was “nothing less than a revolution of wealth creation for everyone, and also common sense.”