Whilst speaking in the House of Commons today Boris Johnson has today attempted to win over his rebel MPs as he defended his new national coronavirus lockdown. He insisted he had ‘no choice’ but plunge Britain back into a spring 2019 style lockdown.
The Prime Minister told a recalled House of Commons that his hand had been forced after a new variant of the disease was found to be spreading with ‘frightening ease’. The new lockdown in England, which includes a strict stay at home message and the closure of all schools, is due to be reviewed in the middle of February but it has emerged that the regulations will actually last in law until the end of March.
The Prime Minister has said that he hoped measures will be able to be lifted in the spring but did warn there will not be a ‘big bang’ out of lockdown and that a ‘gradual unwrapping’ will occur.
Mr Johnson made clear that a successful roll-out of the vaccine programme will be key to determining when the lockdown measures can be lifted. He also told the commons: ‘The tiers the House agreed last month, was working with the old variant but alas, this mutation spreading with frightening ease and speed in spite of the sterling work of the British public, this mutation has led to more cases than we have seen ever before, numbers that alas cannot be explained away by the meteoric rise in testing’.
He then said ‘’So we had no choice but to return to a national lockdown in England with similar measures being adopted by the devolved administrations so that we can control this new variant until we can take the most likely victims out of its path with vaccines’.
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Current Affairs Correspondent | My name is Oliver Down I am 22, and a staunch brexiteer. I am a Bristolian lad who studied politics in Leicester. I believe in free speech and accurate journalism and I won’t be afraid to give you “the other side” of the story!
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