By Victor Kanayo
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has now hit back at former England footballer Gary Neville over comments that workers in the United Kingdom were being exploited.
The ex-Manchester United defender was criticised after appearing to compare the plight of workers involved in the World Cup in Qatar with the issues faced by NHS nurses.
Neville became embroiled in a Twitter spat with Conservative MP Lee Anderson on Monday morning after the the MP for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire urged Neville to keep his “nose out of politics” following his monologue on Sunday night.
Prior to the World Cup final, Neville took the opportunity to call out Sunak and the UK government, as well as the regime in Qatar that staged the tournament, over low pay and poor working conditions.
Neville in his comments said: “The working system of Kafala which obviously through football the conversation has started and it’s been removed here now in Qatar but it is abhorrent and we should detest low pay, we should detest poor accommodation and working conditions.
“We can never accept that in this region or any other region and it is just worth mentioning we’ve got a current government in our country that are demonising rail workers, ambulance workers and terrifying nurses.
“In our country, we’ve got to look at workers’ rights but when football goes, we have to pick up on workers’ rights wherever it goes because people have got to be equal and treated equal. We can’t have people being paid a pittance to work, in accommodation that is unsavoury.
“That shouldn’t happen here with the wealth that exists, but it shouldn’t happen in our own country that our nurses are having to fight for an extra pound or two pounds either.”
Reacting, Sunak said: “I don’t think that’s right at all. If you look at our track record and my track record, as chancellor, I’ve always done everything I can to support our NHS and indeed, the wonderful people who work in it.
“I grew up in an NHS family. I spent my life working in my mum’s pharmacy, when I was younger. And if you look at what we did during Covid, we provided enormous support to the frontline at a time, when it comes to pay, when everyone else in the public sector experienced a pay freeze.”
He said that the government wanted to find a “sensible way through” on pay.
The government faces series of industrial disputes with NHS staff including nurses and ambulance workers as wages fail to keep pace with high inflation.
