MPs overwhelmingly back England’s new four-week lockdown

MPS HAS SUPPORTED a new four-week coronavirus lockdown for England, after Boris Johnson warned of an “existential threat” to the NHS without taking action to slow the spread of the disease.

Starting tomorrow, nonessential pubs, restaurants and shops will again be forced to close their doors after the Commons voted 516 to 38, a government majority of 478, in favor of the new restrictions.

However, in a larger-than-expected rebellion, 32 Conservative MPs defied the whips to vote against the measures, and two more acted as cashiers for the noes.

The move came as the NHS in England was ready to move to its highest alert level, Level 4, starting at midnight amid a continued increase in coronavirus patients in need of hospital care.

NHS England Chief Executive Officer Simon Stevens said the service already had “the value of 22 hospitals” of Covid-19 patients and now faced a “dire situation ahead”.

Professor Stephen Powis, England’s NHS National Medical Director, said the number of people hospitalized is increasing across the country, including in southern England.

With Labor Party support for the new lockdown restrictions, which were also expected to be approved by the House of Lords later Wednesday, the majority of the government was never in doubt.

However, Johnson faced an angry backlash from some Conservative MPs, led by former Prime Minister Theresa May, alarmed by the economic impact of the checks and the restriction of civil liberties.

In the Commons, the prime minister tried to reassure MPs that the measures, which expire on December 2, should allow shops and businesses to reopen in time for the run-up to Christmas.

However, he acknowledged that it would depend on getting the R number, the virus’s reproduction rate, below 1.

Opening the debate, Johnson said that without action now, the chances of the NHS being in “extraordinary trouble” in December were “very, very high.”
“Let me clarify that this existential threat to our NHS does not come from focusing too much on the coronavirus, as is sometimes claimed, but from not focusing enough,” he said.

“We simply cannot get to the point where our National Health Service is no longer available to everyone.”

Labor leader Keir Starmer said that while the restrictions were not “desirable or perfect,” they were necessary as the government had “lost control of the virus.”

However, Johnson faced an avalanche of criticism from some conservatives who questioned the statistics used to justify the shutdown, including a forecast that suggests there could be 4,000 deaths a day.

May said emphatically that Parliament would make better decisions if it was “fully and adequately informed” about the facts.

“For many people, it seems like numbers are being chosen to support policy rather than politics being based on numbers,” he said.

Graham Brady, influential chairman of the 1922 Tory Backbench Committee, questioned whether the government had any right to take some of the measures it wanted.

“What worries me most is that the government is getting too close to the private and family life of our voters. I think there is an arrogance, perhaps involuntary, in assuming that the government has the right to do so, “he said.

Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith complained that the government had been “returned” to lockdown after details were leaked over the weekend.

“Whoever did it should be fired, hung to dry, come here to apologize, dragged out the door on all fours, and frankly beaten on the way out. This is terrible what they have done, ”he said.