Nigel Farage rattled over Andy Burnham not inviting him to cross-party social care talks

Nigel Farage has complained about not being invited to cross-party social care talks later today, despite him not currently being an MP.

The new prime minister Andy Burnham invited Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and the Lib Dem leader Ed Davey to an online meeting to discuss how to fix social care.

Badenoch cannot attend, so she will send her shadow health secretary Stuart Andrew instead.

Burnham said he is “serious about fixing this issue and to do that, we have to find common ground and listen to others”. 

He did not invite Reform, the Green Party or the SNP to the talks. 

Farage, who is not currently an MP after he resigned earlier this month, reacted angrily to not being invited, claiming that it was because Burnham is conspiring about raising taxes to pay for social care.

The Reform leader said: “It’s now clear that Burnham is conspiring behind closed doors to foist further tax rises on the country. The fact Davey and Badenoch are going tells you all you need to know… this is the uniparty in action”.

Reform’s treasury spokesperson Robert Jenrick also criticised Burnham for leaving Farage out of the meeting. 

Jenrick said: “I’m not surprised that Andy Burnham hasn’t invited Nigel Farage. If he had, Nigel would have told him he’d fight this tax rise all the way.  

“That Ed Davey and Kemi Badenoch are going along with this tells you all you need to know about their parties.”

He added: “If we need to, Reform will stand alone to fight this cruel tax. Nigel and I will not see millions of families betrayed like this.”

One social media user responded, stating: “I’m not surprised that Andy Burnham hasn’t invited Nigel Farage either because apart from the fact @Nigel_Farage isn’t an MP @reformparty_uk LTD have no serious social care policy other than “Nigel would have told him he’d fight this tax rise all the way”.

Another wrote: “Nigel is not even a member of parliament currently and is campaigning a by-election against a bin. 

“Reform is not even a big party in the commons, the greens or restore weren’t invited either were they?”.

Burnham has yet to set out how any reforms to social care will be funded.

One funding model, reportedly part of a series of options drawn up by civil servants at the Department for Health and Social Care, would be workers paying into a privately-managed fund to pay for their care in old age.

However, Burnham has not yet announced that this is the model he will use to fund social care.

Badenoch has already written an open letter to Burnham explicitly demanding he ‘rule out any tax rises or increased borrowing’ to fund social care reform, which calls into question Reform’s claim that the purpose of the meeting is to conspire about tax rises behind closed doors. 

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward