Residential doctors begin strikes against Labour government against real-term pay cuts

Fifty-thousand resident doctors employed by the National Health Service (NHS) in England began a five-day strike Friday in pursuit of a pay increase. The strike is the 13th walkout out since the doctors first took action in March 2023 against the then Conservative government to address years of pay erosion, with the lowest paid doctors on just £14 an hour. See WSWS interviews with doctors on the picket line here.

The resident doctors (previously known as junior doctors) also demand an adequate number of training places be made available by government, with 30,000 doctors applying for just 10,000 places this year. Health Secretary Wes Streeting’s offer of just 1,000 more training places means that thousands of qualified doctors will still not be able to get an NHS job.

See WSWS interviews with doctors on the picket line here.

The strike followed the breakdown in talks last month between the Labour government and British Medical Association (BMA). Streeting has refused to budge an inch, refusing demands that the pay of resident doctors be increased to a level which reverses years of pay restraint. Instead, he has imposed a take it leave it offer of 5.4 percent for the 2025-26 financial year.

In rejecting the offer, the BMA stated that under its terms “pay erosion against RPI [Retail Prices Index inflation measure] will be at 21%. Or, put another way, resident doctors are still working more than a fifth of their time for free. A pay uplift of 26 percent is needed to reverse it.”

Seeking to enforce pay restraint, following the BMA’s strikes announcement Streeting stepped up denunciations of resident doctors he accused of holding the country “to ransom”, with claims they would hurt patients needing treatment. In response to a resident doctor speaking to LBC Radio, who said that he didn’t want to be striking but was fighting for a pay increase reflecting his worth, Streeting tried to turn the public against the strike, insisting, “Own it and own the damage it will do to your patients”.

In a speech to managers at the NHS Providers conference last week he said the upcoming strike was “morally reprehensible” and “we are going to plough on regardless” in keeping pay down. Setting the stage for legislation to ban strikes by doctors—a demand being strenuously advocated in the right-wing media—Streeting said, “It’s becoming increasingly clear that the BMA is no longer a professional voice of doctors—they are increasingly behaving in cartel-like behaviour”.

Streeting has support from across the political spectrum, with Labour government-supporting Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee denouncing the resident doctors in a column headlined, “This week’s doctors’ strike is another test of Wes Streeting’s mettle. He is right not to buckle”. Praising Streeting rock bottom offer of a 3.6 percent pay deal for nurses, midwives and physiotherapists, Toynbee wrote, “The doctors have done better than others, which is why Streeting can’t and won’t give in.” She claimed that Streeting “has been eager to settle with them but has been snubbed by the BMA’s ungracious haste to strike.”

The pro-Conservative Telegraph saluted the health minister in a piece published Saturday, “Wes Streeting vs the most toxic union in Britain”, lauding him for “not hiding his contempt for militant BMA bosses”. The newspaper cited an NHS trust chairman, Martin Gower, denouncing the “extremely militant” BMA who “clearly don’t give a damn whether anyone dies because of their strikes, or indeed how many die because of their strikes.”

Streeting became the Telegraph’s poster boy for his pledge—when in opposition to the ruling Tories—to implement NHS cuts and to escalate its privatisation in defiance of workers he denounced as “obstacles” to his “reforms”. He received glowing praise for a glut of statements including, “We are not going to have a something-for-nothing culture in the NHS with Labour”; “I’m not prepared to pour money into a black hole”; and the NHS is “a service, not a shrine,” which is “going to have to get used to the fact that money is tight”.

The Telegraph’s latest endorsement comes amid speculation that Streeting is priming a leadership bid to replace Prime Minister Keir Starmer, with Labour’s support polling at record low levels.

In the face of this offensive, the BMA leadership has repeatedly sought a compromise where none is on offer. In a November 5 statement ahead of the strike, the BMA—which was on record that it would accept a deal for “as little as a pound” an hour in extra pay—complained, “We have also been clear with government that they can call off strikes for years if they’re willing to offer a multi-year pay deal that restores pay over time. Sadly, even after promising a journey to fair pay, Mr Streeting is still unwilling to move.”

As the strike got underway Friday, BMA resident doctors committee chair Dr. Jack Fletcher said, “These strikes did not have to go ahead and the government can stop them even now with a decent offer on pay and jobs.”