Advertisement

Senior Tory Accuses Boris Johnson Of Treating Public Like 'Like Children' With Lockdown Rules

Boris Johnson has been accused by a senior Tory of treating the British people like children through the use of coronavirus emergency powers.

The criticism from Graham Brady, chair of the influential 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, came as a retired senior judge accused parliament of surrendering control to the government over the “draconian” measures.

Baroness Hale, former president of the Supreme Court, called for the return of a “properly functioning constitution as soon as we possibly can”.

Brady’s intervention could signal trouble for the prime minister ahead of a vote on the renewal of the Coronavirus Act on September 30.

He said ministers had “got into the habit of ruling by decree”, adding: “The British people are not used to being treated like children.”

Brady is tabling an amendment which would require the government to put any new measures to a vote of MPs.

He said more scrutiny of the so-called rule of six would have enabled MPs to question why the limit was put at six and not eight or 10 and why children were included in England and not in Wales or Scotland.

He questioned whether the lockdown strategy had worked, pointing to the situation in Sweden, where such restrictions were not used.

And he denied that greater scrutiny would prevent ministers from acting swiftly to deal with the pandemic.

“Governments find it entirely possible to put things to parliament very quickly when they choose to do so,” Brady told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Lady Hale, in an essay seen by The Guardian, suggested parliament had allowed the government to act without proper scrutiny.

The Coronavirus Act 2020, passed in March, gave the government “sweeping” powers alongside other “draconian” regulations, and “it is not surprising the police were as confused as the public as to what was law and what was not”, she wrote.

She said that parliament has now resumed much of its work “but it did surrender control to the government at a crucial...

Continue reading on HuffPost