Nigel Farage has pledged to tackle the "billion-dollar global health empire" of the World Health Organization (WHO) by joining up with a new campaign group committed to reforming it in the wake of the pandemic.
Despite stating the WHO was "founded on noble principles", Farage will link up with Action on World Health (AWH) in order to "take back control" and push the organisation to "stop interfering in people's lives".
AWH will also seek to lobby against the Pandemic Preparedness Treaty, a new piece of legislation set for a vote in Geneva at the end of May which the UK Government says will "foster an all of government and all of society approach, strengthening national, regional and global capacities and resilience to future pandemics".
A statement from the campaign group said "the first draft of the Treaty made clear that the WHO wants the power to force countries into lockdown and mandate vaccines" and warned of civil servants and diplomats "meeting behind closed doors" to discuss the "additional powers and money they want".
Nigel Farage said the WHO must "either reform, or countries must leave it altogether"
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But it is understood that the UK will not agree to sign the treaty.
"The UK could not accept these proposals in their current form – and they have not been agreed," a source familiar with the negotiations told the Telegraph.
While a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "We will only support the adoption of the accord and accept it on behalf of the UK, if it is firmly in the UK national interest and respects national sovereignty."
Farage said: "The WHO can be a force for good in the world, but only if it returns to its noble principles and core objectives.
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AWH took aim at the WHO's Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
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"Its role should be to share information and provide guidance, not dictate policies.
"It must reform to respect national sovereignty, stop interfering in people's lives, and abandon the frankly terrifying pandemic treaty.
"The WHO can no longer ignore the growing dissatisfaction from people across the world. It either reforms, or countries must leave it altogether!"
The AWH statement also said: "The WHO has repeatedly let the world down, whilst building a billion-dollar global health empire that takes power away from countries and their citizens.
"Many have paid the price for its slow response to the spread of highly infectious diseases, with millions dying around the world after China's preferred choice of WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros, told the world in January 2020 there was no human-to-human transmission of COVID-19; while thousands more died during the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa and the 2003 SARS outbreak in Far East Asia."
The "Dr Tedros" the group referred to is Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus - not a medical doctor - who saw support from China and a bloc of African and Asian countries during a 2017 vote on the WHO's next Director-General, and won despite countries like the US, UK and Canada backing British doctor Sir David Nabarro.
AWH's stated aims - to "take back control", "stop the failures", "cut costs by 50 per cent", "restore personal freedoms" and stop the treaty - seek to reform a number of aspects of the WHO which the group believes are diverting the organisation away from its founding principles.
In its statement, the group also took aim at multi-million-dollar donations from "non-state actors" like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other corporations, which it said presented "clear conflicts of interest".
