BORIS Johnson will today face down Tory rebels over his fresh Covid lockdown – as MPs blasted the measures as “evil” and warned they will “ruin lives”.
The PM will take on his own backbenchers today in a Commons clash this afternoon – expected to be from 3.30pm.
He will outline the tough one-month lockdown measures he will put in place from Thursday – if MPs vote for it on Wednesday.
Non-essential businesses will shut, people will be banned from meeting others and everyone will be ordered again to work from home.
But he will fall short of promising the rules will definitely be lifted at the end of the month.
He will tell MPs: “At the end of four weeks, on Wednesday 2nd December, we will seek to ease restrictions, going back into the tiered system on a local and regional basis according to the latest data and trends.
“Models of our scientists suggest that unless we act now, we could see deaths over the winter that are twice as bad or more compared with the first wave.
“Faced with these latest figures, there is no alternative but to take
further action at a national level.”
He will tell them it was right to “try every possible option to get this virus under control at a local level”.
And he will outline more measures to help the self-employed with a new package.
But Conservative MPs and business leaders warned the strict measures would cripple the economy and may not work anyway.
1922 boss Sir Graham Brady said he was likely to vote against the new restrictions, warning of a “mission creep” of new rules.
He told Radio 4 last night: “If these kinds of measures were being taken in any totalitarian country around the world we would be denouncing it as a form of evil and here the removal of people’s fundamental liberties is going almost without comment and I think it is very important that we focus on those basic human rights and find ways, of course, to deal with the serious threat of Covid 19 but do it working with people rather than doing things to people.”
And he attacked ministers for “telling people who they are allowed to sleep with or not depending on whether they are deemed to be in an established relationship or not” – an infringement of the nation’s liberties.
Peter Bone told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he had not yet decided how to vote on the measures and he had yet to
Mr Bone said: “At the moment, I have not been convinced that I should vote on Wednesday with the Government.
“But I’m going to listen.”
Former Tory boss Iain Duncan Smith warned that if the data was wrong in some way “we will have struck the wrong balance between saving lives and ruining lives”.
Writing in the Daily Mail he said today: “Make no mistake, the consequences – in terms of the human cost of closing hospitals to non-Covid patients, and the economic pain caused by the destruction of businesses – will be horrific.”
Mr Duncan Smith warned he will need to be certain the data is “fair and accurate before supporting such a drastic step as full lockdown”.
He went on to blast the way the Government defended the Tiers policy before u-turning completely.
