Mark Reckless made a somewhat surprising start to his life as a Ukip MP yesterday.

Rochester’s new — and at the same time old — right-wing representative was forced to keep the champagne on ice and race straight to Parliament after beating his old Tory pals in Thursday’s by-election.

He was sworn in at breakneck speed by fellow defector Douglas Carswell and the next Tory on Farage’s list, Philip Hollobone.

And, under pressure from Labour, his first act as part of Nigel’s self-styled “people’s army” was to vote against NHS privatisation.

“My party believes in the NHS as a service free at the point of use,” he insisted.

But hang on, said shadow health secretary Andy Burnham, what about when Nigel said he wanted a US-style health system?

Out of context, cried Reckless.

The Medway mouth made a gaffe that even “I’m not a racist but” Nigel winced at earlier this week when he threatened to deport all immigrants if Britain left the EU.

He was very tired, Nige said in mitigation.

Mr Burnham concluded that meant we probably couldn’t believe in Mr Reckless’s rallying cry to save the NHS.

Comrade Carswell had been sitting on the left Labour bench since crossing the floor.

But he and Reckless were given the boot by Dennis Skinner and his socialist caucus yesterday.

And the Beast of Bolsover made it clear he wasn’t buying their support for the NHS.

“I’ve got a United Nations heart bypass,” he said. “It was done by a Syrian cardiologist, a Malaysian surgeon, a Dutch doctor, a Nigerian registrar and these two people here talk about sending them back.”