BORIS Johnson has suffered his largest rebellion yet as Prime Minister after dozens of MPs rejected his plans for lockdown restrictions.
The Prime Minister was criticised from within his own party about his plans for tiered measures from Wednesday in England.
Despite the measures passing with 291 votes in favour and 78 against, 53 of his own Conservative MPs were among those who did not support his plans.
The majority of Labour and the Liberal Democrats abstained from voting, as well as the SNP and the Scottish Conservative MPs.
Along with bitter criticism from Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and opposition MPs, Mr Johnson’s own colleagues were highly critical of his decisions.
Steve Baker, Tory MP said he was “going to have to vote no tonight to send a message to the Government”.
He said MPs had been “looking for serious analysis of these harms and benefits from the Government’s policies in the context of coronavirus.”
He added: “Here we stand at a profoundly dangerous moment, heading into infringements on our liberties around vaccination and testing which we would never normally tolerate.”
Fellow Tory MP Graham Brady, who leads the 1922 committee, said he recognised the difficult decision the Prime Minister faced, before stressing the need for freedom to be regarded as “precious”.
Matt Hancock told MPs he had suffered a loss in his own family as a result of the virus and urged them to vote for the tiered measures.
The Health Secretary's voice cracked as he revealed his step-grandfather had died after catching the virus, and said: “We can afford to let up a little, we just can’t afford to let up a lot.”
He continued: "We know through repeat experience what happens if this virus gets out of control.
“If it gets out of control, it grows exponentially, hospitals comes under pressure, and people die.
“This isn’t just speculation, it’s a fact that has affected thousands of families including my own.
“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 November 18 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."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel