WOKINGHAM MP John Redwood wants the country to end its lockdown, despite Boris Johnson delaying the date by four weeks.
On Monday night, the prime minister gave a press conference where he revealed that the planned ending of restrictions for June 21 needed to be put back due to concerns over the Delta variant.
Sir John said that he did understand the caution of advisors, but the government had a task to “weight that advice in the balance with advice coming from people wanting to reopen their businesses, get back to work, have a less restricted social and family life”. These groups, he felt, “think the current restrictions have gone on long enough”.
He made the comments in a blog post on his website on Tuesday.
And the veteran MP reminded people that he had previously suggested a range of measures that would have kept people safe while unlocking much of the economy.
“The basis of the whole package was the principle of helping all elderly and medically vulnerable people to stay away from others who might be a centre of infection whilst allowing others unlikely to get a serious version of the disease more freedom if they wished,” he said.
“It was important to make it as easy as possible for those isolating to get deliveries of the things they needed from phone or online orders, and for them to keep in touch by phone or Zoom or social media.”
He also stated: “As the official figures for cases and deaths built up around the world there was no simple relationship between length and severity of lockdown and death rates. Countries like Belgium and Hungary with lockdown policies suffered worse than others not taking so many measures”.
On the current extension to the current lockdown, he wrote: “The government announced a continuation of measures for another four weeks. This will harm a range of businesses still locked down, and continue to impede other businesses operating well below normal capacity thanks to social distancing rules.
“I urge them to review this decision as soon as new data becomes available. It appears that the vaccines are very effective, and that practically everyone vulnerable to bad version of the disease has now had a vaccine.
“I favour letting people make more of their own decisions about how much risk they are willing to run in their lives.
“If someone still has a fear of this virus then of course the employer, the family and the community should be sympathetic and help them to do as much as possible without social contact. For others who are at very little risk of a bad version of the disease, let them make more of their own choices.”
Since this article was written, Sir John voted against the Government in relation to this issue. He said: “We now want to get on with our lives. We now need to let people go to work and rebuild our prosperity.“
