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MPs are debating and voting on Boris Johnson’s new coronavirus lockdown rules, and the prime minister is facing a Tory backlash and possible rebellion.
Some Tory MPs are against the measures on civil liberties grounds, while others say restrictions like a 10pm curfew for pubs and restaurants are counterproductive.
But unless Sir Keir Starmer orders Labor MPs to vote against the measures, in a series of votes after a four-hour debate, the prime minister is assured of victory even if some of his own MPs rebel.
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Defending his new brakes at a Downing Street news conference, Johnson said COVID cases had risen fourfold in four weeks, more people were in the hospital and deaths were increasing.
“These numbers are flashing to us like warnings on the dashboard of an airliner and we must act now,” the prime minister said.
Johnson also said the government could impose further restrictions if local politicians disagreed with the new measures.
“If we cannot reach an agreement, then clearly it is the duty of the national government to take the necessary measures to protect public and public health and we will,” said the prime minister.
But in a warning that government advisers want even stricter measures, England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, said that even the strictest rules announced by the prime minister were not enough on their own.
“I’m not sure, and no one is sure, that the Tier Three proposals for the highest rates, if we made the absolute base case and nothing else, would be enough to overcome it,” he said.
Later, government scientific advisers SAGE released documents revealing that the so-called “circuit breaker,” the national shutdown, was at the top of a short list of measures recommended to the government last month.
Other SAGE proposals included:
- Tips for working from home for everyone who can;
- Ban all contact within the household with members of other households (except members of a support bubble);
- Close all bars, restaurants, cafes, indoor gyms and personal services such as hairdressers;
- All college and university teaching “must be online unless face-to-face teaching is absolutely essential.”
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Ahead of the Commons debate, the prime minister faces the ire of conservatives, and West Midlands Mayor Andy Street claims the government has ignored the views of local leaders.
Street said the stricter measures for Birmingham and the West Midlands were not something regional leaders endorsed, nor what he believed would happen after talks in recent days.
“The most important change between our current restrictions and the new ones announced today is the ban on mixing homes in hospitality venues,” said Mr. Street.
“This is something that the most recent local epidemiology does not support and I am disappointed that the government is going ahead with this despite the united vision of local leaders.”
In Parliament, Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential 1922 Tory Committee, questioned how Johnson would prevent local restrictions from becoming permanent.
Conservative MP Philip Davies told Johnson to “trust the British people to act responsibly” instead of “a constant storm of arbitrary rules that will only serve to collapse the economy and destroy businesses and jobs.”
And Mark Pawsey said the 10 p.m. curfew led many people “to leave the pub to go to a store to stock up on alcohol, often with their friends, to drink at home.”
