The House Opinion Article | The Future Of The WHO: Another Brexit?

January 2025: Newly inaugurated President Donald Trump signs the executive order withdrawing from the WHO | Image by: Associated Press / Alamy

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The removal of the stars and stripes from outside of the World Health Organization’s headquarters in January was an emblematic start to the year – but it may not be the last member flag to be lowered at the WHO’s Geneva base.

For although the USA finally completed its withdrawal from the WHO on 22 January – after Donald Trump signed an executive order to leave at the start of his second presidency in January 2025 – Maga is not the only movement hostile to the WHO.

An international campaign-group co-founded and chaired by Nigel Farage, Action on World Health (AWH), is due to report in late spring on its core mission of “reforming or replacing the WHO” – and its findings could be influential in shaping Reform UK health policy.

Writing in The Telegraph back in May 2024, the same month he launched AWH, Farage threatened to leave the WHO if it did not reform, describing comparisons between the EU and the organisation as “stark”: “The WHO is a failing, expensive, unelected, unaccountable, supranational body that wants more and more powers to run roughshod over nation state democracies and free citizens.”

A particular point of contention for critics of the WHO in recent years has been the process of drafting the Pandemic Agreement (formally adopted by WHO in May last year), the original version of which Farage condemned as “signing away our sovereignty”.

There has also been ideological resistance among the WHO’s opponents to any moves that advocate ‘nanny-state’ regulations on food, alcohol and tobacco – and also to programmes that support the provision of abortion. Like Trump, the AWH has also accused the WHO of “supporting the Chinese Communist Party cover up of Covid-19”.

Farage is not alone in his party in his view of the organisation. Speaking to The House, Reform UK MP and the party’s head of preparing for government Danny Kruger agrees with his party leader, stating that there is a “fundamental problem” with the WHO, “in the degree to which it is in the thrall not just to big pharma but to the countries with some very bad records on health, with China being the main one”.

Referring to the pandemic treaty, Kruger adds: “I was very opposed to the new regulations that were passed last year… The treaty that was agreed gave much greater power to the WHO to impose responses to major outbreaks, pandemics, and such like, onto countries.”

The original draft, he says, was “horrendous” – particularly the “proposals to mandate all sorts of particular responses, from lockdowns to masks and vaccinations and everything, all from the WHO, rather than member state governments”.

The treaty that was agreed gave much greater power to the WHO to impose responses to major outbreaks

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The Department of Health and Social Care counters that the organisation plays a “crucial” role in the global health system, with a spokesperson saying: “The UK is committed to working with the WHO to tackle the world’s health issues, and to ensure it is equipped to meet today’s global health challenges.

“Our membership of the WHO helps to protect the UK’s heath security by sharing crucial information and acting on all health-related threats and emergencies, as well as by supporting other countries in improving their health systems.”

Although Kruger concedes that “there were some improvements” to the treaty in response to “pushback”, the MP says he remains anxious about the WHO’s agenda.

“I worry about the whole trend of a global health agency. Yes, we need global data and collaboration, but fundamentally it must be governments that take responsibility for introducing major interventions,” he says. “So, I’d rather the WHO got back to fighting malaria, rather than bossing everyone around when there’s a pandemic.”

Labour member of the Health Select Committee and public health doctor Beccy Cooper argues that “a Reform-led government would be a risk to the public health of this country, just as their views on vaccinations have shown”.

“Taking us out of the WHO would be catastrophic because we need to be able to identify emerging threats before they become the next pandemic,” she says. “We need the WHO to collect, analyse and disseminate data to all countries in real time. Similarly, the threat of antimicrobial resistance is a biosecurity issue that no amount of investment in guns and tanks will prevent from reaching our shores.”

Since Trump’s withdrawal from the WHO, China has only strengthened its influence within the 194-member-state organisation, with it now set to replace the USA as the largest member state contributor. (The UK was the fourth largest member contributor in the WHO’s accounts for 2024 and 2025.)

But Cooper contends a “properly resourced, right-sized” WHO that leads on key issues and brings together health leaders to shape global responses to the emerging health threats of the day is a “valuable resource” that the UK should not leave: “The UK should now show leadership in this space and support the WHO to transition into an organisation fit for the 21st century.”

Meanwhile, whether Farage will still support remaining within a reformed WHO now that the USA has left – or advocate following Trump in exiting the organisation – may become clearer once the AWH report is published.

If Farage remains unconvinced of the WHO’s will to change direction, and his party wins a majority at the next general election, then, in the words of the Reform leader, “a second Brexit will be on the cards”. 

Additional reporting by Sienna Rodgers