Fifty Conservative MPs, including former prime minister Theresa May, have rebelled against party leader Boris Johnson's coronavirus lockdown, which comes into force in England on Thursday. Labour voted with Mr Johnson's government to ensure an overwhelming endorsement in the House of Commons of the four-week lockdown on Wednesday, but 34 Conservatives voted against it and 16 more, including Mrs May, abstained.
Opening a three-hour debate on the issue in the House of Commons, Mr Johnson said the restrictions were necessary to bring Covid-19 infections down to a manageable level and he promised the lockdown would end on December 2nd.
“It is absolutely right for this House – for members on all sides of this House – to have the doubts that have been expressed, to seek answers from me and to provide scrutiny. That is the purpose and duty of the House of Commons,” he said.
“But, while it pains me to call for such restrictions on lives, liberty and business, I have no doubt that these restrictions represent the best and safest path for our country, our people and our economy.”
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Among those who voted against the measures were former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith and the chairman and vice-chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, Graham Brady and Charles Walker.
Sir Graham said he would vote against the motion with greater conviction than in casting any other vote in his 23 years in parliament.
“What troubles me most is that the government are reaching too far into the private and family lives of our constituents. There is an arrogance – unintended, perhaps – in assuming that the government have the right to do so, that they have the right to tell people whether they can visit their elderly parents in a care home; that they have the right to tell parents and grandparents that they cannot see their children or grandchildren, and whether they have any right, for heaven’s sake, to tell consenting adults with whom they are allowed to sleep,” he said.
Data questioned
Mrs May questioned the data that underpinned the decision to impose a second national lockdown, notably a projection that the daily death toll could rise to 4,000 a day without it. She said the graph showing that trajectory suggested a daily death toll of 1,000 by the end of October, four times the average daily figure last week.
“This leads to a problem for the government, because for many people it looks as though the figures are being chosen to support the policy, rather than the policy being based on the figures. We need these proper analyses; we need to know the details behind these models, and we need to be able to assess the validity of the models,” she said.
Labour leader Keir Starmer said his party would support the lockdown, but he accused the prime minister of ensuring that it would last longer than necessary by delaying the restrictions for three weeks. He said that if the government had introduced a short lockdown to coincide with last month's midterm break for schools, the restrictions would have been less disruptive and could have lasted only two or three weeks.
