Lockdown backlash: Backbenchers set to rebel against PM’s draconian Covid strategy

As Boris Johnson prepares a new wave of coronavirus restrictions, his colleagues on the backbenches are plotting to reduce the government’s powers to take such extraordinary actions. Senior Conservative MPs, angered by the impact of sudden restrictions on civil liberties and the economy, are set to use an upcoming six-month review of emergency coronavirus legislation to clip Downing Street’s wings.

In an indication of the level of frustration, Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the powerful 1922 committee of Conservative backbenchers who is usually staunchly loyal to the Conservative government of the day, has taken a public stand against Downing Street’s use of emergency coronavirus powers. “The government has got into the habit of, in respect to the coronavirus issue, ruling by decree without usual debate and discussion and votes in Parliament that we would expect on any other matter,” he told BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme.

“The British people aren’t used to being treated as children,” he added. “We expect in this country to have a parliamentary democracy where our elected representatives on our behalf can require proper answers to these things from the government and not just have things imposed on them.”

Brady has proposed an amendment to the renewal of the Coronavirus Act requiring ministers to get parliamentary approval before introducing new coronavirus edicts, as is already the case with powers under the Civil Contingencies Act. In theory, parliamentary scrutiny would soften the government’s approach to the virus. The 80-seat Conservative majority in the Commons would, the logic goes, be more sensitive to the economic cost of restrictions than the government’s scientific advisers.

Given his credibility in the parliamentary party, Brady’s amendment poses a serious threat to the government. Indeed, he wouldn’t have to do much to convince many of his colleagues. Senior MPs such as David Davis, Iain Duncan Smith and Theresa Villiers have already voiced concerns about the powers. New MPs in “red wall” seats are growing nervous about the impact of the winding-down of the furlough scheme on their local economies. And rebels may have the tacit support of several lockdown-sceptics in the Cabinet, including Chancellor Rishi Sunak who has spent the weekend asking Johnson to delay the most economically damaging elements of the new restrictions.

The fundamental issue for Tory backbenchers is that the government’s coronavirus strategy is at odds with their conservative values. While they have called for individual responsibility, pointing to Sweden as an example of a successful example of a bottom-up approach, the government’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, today told the public: “You cannot in an epidemic just take your own risk. Unfortunately, you’re taking risk on behalf of everybody else. It’s important that we see this as something we have to do collectively.”

Whitty’s line was evidence to some Conservatives of potentially catastrophic group-think in the heart of government. “It’s an opinion, and there isn’t a graph to prove it,” one parliamentary staffer told Reaction.

There are serious questions about the scientific basis of Downing Street’s decision-making. Sceptical MPs point to Professor Carl Heneghan, the director of the University of Oxford’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, who says there is no evidence of a second wave. “Slow down, get a wider range of expertise in the room, so you can make a much more balanced decision about what you’re going to actually do,” he told the government via Sky News. “And its impact not just on Covid, but what about all the other infections, all the cancers, the heart disease.”

Heneghan has a record of embarrassing government scientists. In July he spotted that Public Health England included in coronavirus death statistics any person who had once had Covid-19, even if they’d recovered from the virus and died of another cause.

The rebellion over the Coronavirus Act renewal isn’t just about the process of applying powers but sending a message to the government about a general unease over its plans for the next 6-12 months. This unease has been compounded by a sense that the Prime Minister has lost his way. He has lost his lead in the polls, and the self-inflicted crisis brought by the Internal Market Bill both decreased the chances of a Brexit deal and damaged the UK government’s relationship with the US.

Critics will say Johnson has lost some of the gravitas that comes with the office of the Prime Minister. His five living predecessors, including three Conservatives, condemned his actions over the Internal Market Bill, and former Conservative leader Lord Howard continues to lead a rebellion to the bill in the Lords. As Iain Martin noted in his Reaction weekend email, “The elders of the Tory tribe – in the parliamentary party and the Lords – are savaging Boris on the grounds of his general hopelessness, which is the first step to imagining life after Boris.”

A weakened and vulnerable Boris Johnson will now use whatever is left of his parliamentary authority to make the case for a further curtailment of civil liberties and economic activity. He will therefore tie his future as Prime Minister to the government’s handling of this “second wave” of coronavirus.