Jeremy Corbyn addresses the crowd in Navigator Square, Archway

HUNDREDS of supporters packed into Navigator Square as Jeremy Corbyn, the Independent candidate for Islington North, warned against Labour’s plans to “hollow out our NHS by continuing Tory underfunding and privatisation”.

The emergency rally on Saturday came two days after Labour launched their manifesto, which did not rule out cuts to the NHS.

Mr Corbyn was joined by healthcare workers and campaigners who spoke of their experiences working for or being treated by the NHS.

Shirley Franklin, who has spent more than a decade organising campaigns to save Whittington Hospital, said increased privatisation was “disgusting”.

She said Mr Corbyn had continually fought beside NHS workers as they demanded better pay and conditions, or protested against local closures.

Ms Franklin said: “We want this MP to be our MP. We want this MP, who fights for a better world for all of us.”

Mr Corbyn’s speech was interrupted by pro-Israel protesters who walked in front of the crowd carrying banners denouncing Hamas.

“Thanks very much, you’ve made your point,” Mr Corbyn said in res­ponse to the disturbance. The ex-Labour leader went on to outline his own position on privatisation.

“Unlike Labour and the Tories,” Mr Corbyn said, “I do not believe the expansion of the private sector is the answer to the NHS crisis.”

Mr Corbyn’s supporters in the square

Following the rally, Mr Corbyn walked to the Whittington where he handed in a pledge as the independent candidate for Islington North. It included promises to end outsourcing and privatisation, to support NHS staff on strike for fair pay, and never take donations from private healthcare.

Speaking to the Tribune following the rally, Mr Corbyn said there would be no “guarantee” of improvements to the NHS under a Labour government.

He said: “Unless we end the principle of the internal market within the NHS… privatisation will continue, a two-tier workforce will continue, and the lack of integration with either care or mental health will simply get worse and worse.”

Mr Corbyn added that he would support the junior doctors as they prepare to take further strike action in the week before the general election.

Sir Keir Starmer has ruled out giving them the 35 per cent pay rise they are demanding, instead insisting that he will “get in the room” with them to settle the dispute.

“If he doesn’t agree to increasing their pay, many will leave and go elsewhere,” Mr Corbyn said. “I feel very sorry for junior doctors, they work very hard. Their pay levels are atrocious for the skill and the good they’re doing for the rest of our community. There has to be a very big increase in their pay.”

Labour’s Wes Streeting has long defended plans to use private hospitals to alleviate pressure on NHS waiting lists. But Mr Corbyn said that the shadow health secretary’s claims that this was not privatisation were “misleading”.

He said: “By using the capacity of private healthcare, you are funnelling large sums of money into the private healthcare system which will allow them to invest and develop another alternative private healthcare system for those that can afford it.

“If the NHS is short of capacity because there’s been too many closures, then the answer is to take over the private health hospitals and make them available for everybody.”