Boris Faces Tory Backlash Over ‘Orwellian’ Lockdown Extension

Boris Johnson Will Address The Nation

Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces a Tory backlash. Image: No 10

Boris Johnson faces a Tory backlash over ‘Orwellian’ lockdown extension plans. The Prime Minister is expected to announce today that England’s Covid-19 restrictions will be extended for another four weeks amid fears it may be spring 2022 before the country gets fully back to normal. He is however facing a backlash from within his own party.

Speaking with ITV news on June 12 Johnson said details would be revealed today, June 14.

Johnson said, “I think we’ve got to do whatever it takes to protect life in this country.”

The Delta variant currently makes up to 96 per cent of new cases in England and the hope is that four more weeks of restrictions would allow thousands more people to be vaccinated and avoid a spike in hospitalisations.

However, Tory back benchers are furious with the Prime Minister and warn that hundreds of thousands of livelihoods would be lost under a month of further restrictions, and even more if restrictions last beyond July 19.

Mark Harper, chairman of the Conservative Party’s Covid Recovery Group, said, “We have a rapid rollout of effective vaccines and are heading into summer. If, even at this point, the government won’t release restrictions, this points to restrictions in the autumn and winter, when respiratory diseases increase and the NHS is always under more pressure. This would be devastating for business confidence, people’s livelihoods and well-being.”

Other Conservative MPs offered harsher criticism amid a growing backlash.

Marcus Fysh, MP for Yeovil, said the government and scientific advisors have “completely lost their way.”

“If we are still in a no man’s land wondering about coronavirus through the summer months then you can see how there would be calls to lock down into the autumn, and then lock down in winter and spring. We need to make a stand now and say it is not acceptable,” he said.

“It would not surprise me at all if people just ignore them. I think it would be completely understandable if they did,” he added.

Richard Drax, MP for South Dorset, said, “Every time I hope for freedom, you hear the scraping of shovels and the goalposts are lifted up and moved two feet to the right. This is no longer acceptable. Common sense and pragmatism is needed now, not more Project Fear, which frankly I have had enough of. We cannot go on destroying people’s lives and livelihoods.

“If it is a two-week delay now, in two weeks’ time it will be another two weeks, and another two weeks, and another two weeks and we will never get out of this Orwellian nightmare,” he added.

According to The Institute for Economic Affairs, an extended lockdown would cost the economy £1 billion a week.


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Deirdre Tynan

Deirdre Tynan is an award-winning journalist who enjoys bringing the best in news reporting to Spain’s largest English-language newspaper, Euro Weekly News. She has previously worked at The Mirror, Ireland on Sunday and for news agencies, media outlets and international organisations in America, Europe and Asia. A huge fan of British politics and newspapers, Deirdre is equally fascinated by the political scene in Madrid and Sevilla. She moved to Spain in 2018 and is based in Jaen.

Comments


    • Martin Blackshaw

      17 June 2021 • 01:49

      My only comfort is that one day Boris Johnson and his co-conspirator counterparts in the other once-free Western nations, will stand trial in a Nuremberg-type judicial setting accused of crimes against humanity, not least for the coercing and/or enforcing of dangerous experimental vaccines on the population without the least justification. I have studied all official sources relating to COVID-19 over many hundreds of hours and I can state without fear of contradiction that what the world is presently witnessing is a transformation in the way we live, from democratic to totalitarian, in the name of a fabricated global health crisis. I urge all obejective and rational people to do their own research and for heavens’ sake stop listening to the psychological terror propaganda put out by the media

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