What exactly did Nigel Farage say about privatizing the NHS during the 2016 Brexit campaign?

1. What Farage actually said in 2016: a warning about TTIP and a “back door”

On his LBC phone‑in during the referendum campaign Farage framed the risk of privatisation not as an explicit pledge to rip up the NHS but as a warning about international trade rules, arguing that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) “would allow giant American corporations to bid for contracts within the National Health Service” and that “many people…fear that this could be the privatisation of the National Health Service through the back door” ^[1].

2. Context: he invoked TTIP and repeated a line used by other Brexit figures

Farage’s language echoed wider Leave-Remain debates about TTIP; his claim mirrored legal analyses and union warnings discussed in media coverage that raised the possibility of irreversible outsourcing under certain trade deals ^[1]. He attacked then‑Prime Minister David Cameron’s messaging and used “back‑door privatisation” rhetoric common among Brexit campaigners and commentators, situating his statement within a broader campaign narrative rather than as a dry policy paper ^[1].

3. What he had previously said: openness to insurance and private provision

Farage has a record of earlier remarks that complicate his 2016 wording: he was recorded in 2012 endorsing an NHS funded “through the marketplace of an insurance company,” and in later interviews he acknowledged having once advocated “a form of NHS privatisation,” while UKIP officially insisted reforms not wholesale abolition of the service ^{[1] [2]}. Fact‑checking outlets and later reporting have noted that while his parties’ manifestos (2015 UKIP and 2019 Brexit Party) pledged to keep the NHS free at point of use, Farage personally signalled willingness to “re‑examine” funding models including insurance elements ^[3].

4. How opponents and supporters framed his remarks

Political opponents used Farage’s warnings and past comments to assert he wanted to privatise the NHS outright: Liberal Democrats and Labour figures accused him of seeking to move healthcare toward private insurance and portrayed his TTIP warnings as inconsistent with his private‑sector preferences ^{[4] [5]}. Supporters and Farage himself presented the TTIP comment as a defence of national control — arguing the real risk was losing sovereignty over procurement to foreign corporations rather than announcing an explicit desire to dismantle public funding ^[1].

5. The headline vs. the underlying policy position: caution about trade rules, not an explicit pledge to nationalise private healthcare

Taken precisely, Farage’s 2016 public line was a caution: he warned that certain international trade arrangements could open the NHS to foreign bidders and thus effect “privatisation through the back door” ^[1]. That phrase was a rhetorical alarm about treaties and procurement, not a manifesto‑style policy statement telling how he would replace the NHS; yet it sat alongside a personal record of suggesting insurance‑style models and later party proposals that lean on private provision to relieve NHS pressure, creating legitimate ambiguity about his long‑term aims ^{[2] [5] [6]}.

6. Bottom line and limits of available reporting

The factual record shows Farage warned in 2016 that TTIP could enable US firms to bid for NHS contracts and described that as potential “back‑door” privatisation ^[1]; he has in other settings privately advocated insurance‑style funding and supported private providers easing NHS demand, though his parties formally promised to keep care free at point of use ^{[2] [5] [3]}. The sources provided do not include a single, unambiguous 2016 manifesto passage from Farage pledging to dismantle public funding, so statements must be read as a mix of rhetorical warnings about trade rules and a personal willingness to countenance private funding models ^{[1] [3]}.