MILLIONS of Brits will be plunged into draconian Tier rules tomorrow after MPs voted by 291-78 to pass the rules – but Boris Johnson faced his biggest backbench rebellion yet.
53 Tory MPs voted against and 17 more abstained rather than support the Prime Minister in his biggest blow since last year’s Election.
Labour abstained on the move, prompting Mr Johnson to brand Sir Keir Starmer “absolutely invertebrate”.
But tonight’s win came at a cost to the PM of dozens of fuming backbenchers.
Tory MPs queued up to slam the restrictions in a testy six hour Commons session earlier today.
Tonight’s vote means that 99 per cent of the country will tomorrow be living under tougher rules despite just a third of MPs backing them.
A government spokesman claimed victory tonight, saying: “We welcome tonight’s vote which endorses our Winter Plan, brings an end to the national restrictions and returns England to a tiered system.
“This will help to safeguard the gains made during the past month and keep the virus under control.
“We continue to work with MPs who have expressed concerns in recent days.”
The huge rebellion came despite a direct plea from the PM to his own MPs to “stick together”.
He told them on a private Zoom call with just minutes to go before the crunch vote: “It is like we are at the end of a six hour journey and the kids are going crazy on the back seat asking ‘are we nearly there yet?’”
The PM said he knew “everyone’s patience is really now at an end but we are nearly there and if we all want to get there together, we are going to have to keep going.”
He insisted: “I don’t want to be doing any of this, I’m a conservative, I didn’t come into politics to intervene in businesses.”
MP Ben Everitt said tonight it had been “another tough day at the office”.
He added: “I wish there were better options.”
Earlier the PM set out major concessions to MPs to try and persuade them to back the Government
In a bid to woo them he promised:
- He promised that he would be looking at a more local tiers system in future when the measures get reviewed in just two weeks’ time
- 30,000 drinks-only pubs will get an extra £1,000 grant to try and help them make ends meet – as revealed by HOAR this morning – “recognising how hard they’ve been hit by this in what is their typically busiest month”
- And he vowed that the Tiers system would only continue past February 2nd if MPs vote for them – meaning they would be in place for two months as a minimum
He told MPs in the Commons today: “We do want to be as granular as possible to reflect the reality of the epidemic.
“As we go forward and I mean this very seriously, the Government will look at how we can reflect as closely as possible what is happening on the ground for local people, at the human geography and spread of the pandemic.”
He insisted: “All we need to do is hold our nerve… until these vaccines are rolled out and indeed into our arms.”
He argued that the Tiers system would not be another lockdown and from tomorrow the public can go out again to gyms, shops and swimming pools.
The PM said: “This is not another lockdown. Nor is this the renewal of existing measures in England.”
And Health Sec Matt Hancock choked back tears tonight as he revealed his step grandfather died from Covid.
In highly emotional scenes in Parliament, the Health Secretary said his own family has been hit by the tragedy of the pandemic.
He paid tribute to his step grandfather Derek, describing him as a “loving husband, father and grandfather”.
Becoming tearful as he closed the Covid debate in the House of Commons, Mr Hancock thanked Brits for knuckling down to defeat the virus.
The 42 year-old said: “We talk a lot of the outbreak in Liverpool, and how that great city has had a terrible outbreak and got it under control.
“This means more to me than I can say, because last month my step grandfather Derek caught Covid there and on 18 November he died.
“In my family, as in so many others, we’ve lost a loving husband, a father, a grandfather to this awful disease.
“So from the bottom of my heart I want to say thank you to everyone in Liverpool for getting this awful virus under control.
“It’s down by four-fifths in Liverpool, that’s what we can do if we work together in a spirit of common humanity.
“We’ve got to beat this, we’ve got to beat it together.”
MPs have been holding frantic discussions with the Health Secretary, who are furious about being put into higher tiers than they feel they deserve.
This morning John Penrose shared a letter from the Health Secretary suggesting that the regions may be able to be carved up into smaller bits than before – in what would be a huge climbdown to the rebels.
It led to MPs for areas in Kent, which has been shoved from Tier 1 to Tier 3, cry that the rules were unfair on their areas with lower cases.
The same happened in North Somerset, where rates are mostly low but it has been brought into line as a result of higher clusters of cases nearby.
Boris and the Government had previously defended the system, saying they have to apply blanket rules over big areas.
The PM has said that if restrictions weren’t put on bigger authorities, it would let the virus run out of control.
MPs stood up in the Commons this afternoon to express their worries over the new system.
Conservative former minister Andrea Leadsom suggested that the risk of non-compliance with lockdown restrictions is “very great”.
She said: “I want to support my Government and my Prime Minister in the lobby this evening, but I can’t and won’t inflict deliberate harm on my constituency unless I can see for myself that to do nothing would be worse.”
Senior Tory Sir Graham Brady added: “If Government is to take away fundamental liberties of the people whom we represent, they must demonstrate beyond question that they’re acting in a way that is both proportionate and absolutely necessary.
“Today, I believe the Government has failed to make that compelling case.”
Tory MP Damian Green said the public not backing the measures would mean that normal life won’t be able to get back to normal as quickly as possibles.
He argued: “I’ve had the most angry emails over a weekend since the Dominic Cummings trip to Barnard Castle.”
But Bernard Jenkin, another critic of the Government’s strategy, said he would be backing them today as there was “no alternative”.
According to one MP, three people told the PM they would be voting against when he entered the tea room this lunchtime.
Robert Syms said: “he headed for tea room – first 3 Tories he talked to told him they were against!”
Matt Hancock's reply after calls with me & @LiamFox over weekend; promises to ‘look at N. Somerset on its own merits’ rather than part of Bristol at 2 week review. Shows he’s listening (
) & we should qualify for tier 2 next time ( ) but leaves us in tier 3 until then ( ) pic.twitter.com/IkMXJG9q03 — John Penrose (@JohnPenroseNews) December 1, 2020
