There are a number of reasons why this is staggering. The first is that Phillips claims ‘almost all the doctors in Birmingham seemed to be [Palestinian].’ Given that only 207 Palestinians work in the NHS in total, it’s little wonder she was waiting so long. Equally astonishing is that Philips would tell this story at all. Presumably, she meant to convey a sense that Gaza had real impacts on her constituents because it is an issue that matters to respectable people like doctors.

Certainly, this would fit in with Phillip’s history of blinkeredness. After receiving a torrent of abuse from pro-Gaza activists at the last general election — including being threatened, intimidated and drowned out by shouts whilst giving her acceptance speech — she was asked whether this hostile response was sectarian. She responded that ‘the fact that they were Muslim is not significant because there are Muslim people in my constituency who didn’t behave like this’, before adding: ‘they did it because they were idiots.’

But, after being given priority for medical treatment by a doctor on the grounds of sectarian division generated by the latest flare-up of a millennia-long inter-ethnic conflict thousands of miles away, it is hard to see how the blinkers can stay on. Accusations of two-tier policing are bad; the implications of two-tier healthcare are arguably worse.

If the NHS in Birmingham will see you more quickly when you’re pro-Palestine the most pertinent question is, as academic David Jefferey asked: what type of care will you receive if you are perceived to be Jewish? The allocation of urgent medical care to an MP following lines of sectarian allegiance raises questions about how often such cases are happening out of the public eye, and what other care doctors are providing based on reasons other than medical need.

Any doctor who prioritizes patients based on politics rather than necessity deserves to be struck off. Any MP prepared to accept this open abuse of public services to their benefit deserves to be removed from office. Phillips could perhaps redeem herself by tackling Britain’s increasing sectarianism and its effects. But we wouldn’t hold our breath. There are none so blind as those who will not see.

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Tom Jones writes at The Potemkin Village Idiot.

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