MPs vote for second coronavirus lockdown
MPs have resoundingly voted to support Prime Minister, Boris Johnson’s plan for a month-long lockdown beginning on Thursday (November 05).
The government kept a rebellion by recalcitrant Tory MPs at the House of Commons at bay to win by a staggering 516 votes to 38, a majority of 478.
The vote means that as of tomorrow (November 05), pubs, bars, restaurants and non-essential shops will close across England and will stay shut until December 02.
People will also be told to stay at home apart from when attending school, college, university, work or to go shopping for food and essentials.
The latest lockdown effectively replaces the three-tier system of regional restrictions across England for four weeks, after which the tiers will be re-imposed.
Before the vote, the PM counseled MPs that a second lockdown was required to “contain the surge” of Covid-19 cases.
Johnson warned in dramatic style that absent immediate action Britain could expect deaths on a “grievous scale” with hospitals in “extraordinary trouble” by as early as next month.
During a three hour debate in the House of Commons, Tory rebels – in addition to a handful of Labor MPs from the North-West of England – tried to push back against the PM’s plan largely on economic and personal liberty grounds.
Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the powerful 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, told the House he would vote against the lockdown "with greater conviction" than any other vote he had cast in his 23 years in Parliament.
"The thing that troubles me most is that the government is reaching too far into the private and family lives of our constituents", Brady claimed.
Former PM, Theresa May, opposed Johnson’s plan on the grounds that Covid-19 cases in Liverpool (a hotspot for coronavirus infections) is supposedly falling.
May’s position was supported by former Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith, who questioned the data behind the PM’s proposed second lockdown.
Duncan Smith was also critical of the “appalling” leak of the government’s lockdown plan to the media, before its official announcement.
But despite the vociferous opposition from senior Tories, Johnson remained resolute in the House, proclaiming that he is not prepared “to take the risk with the lives of British people”.
The vote in the House of Commons took place on the day that a further 25,177 people tested positive for Covid-19 in the UK accompanied by 492 confirmed coronavirus-related deaths.
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