Amid attacks by the opposition and a rift within its base of support, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, defended on Wednesday (15) in parliament the measures imposed by his government to control the Covid pandemic -19, he downplayed the crisis of confidence he is facing among conservatives and ruled out resigning.
A day after facing the biggest parliamentary rejection by lawmakers from his own party, who considered the new package of restrictions draconian, the British leader reaffirmed that it is necessary in the face of the threat of the omicron variant, and stressed that the proposal turned out to be approved.
Nicknamed “Plan B”, the package provides for actions such as the mandatory use of masks in most closed places, the requirement of vaccination certificate in nightclubs and large events and the vaccination of health professionals.
In a vote on Tuesday night, 99 of the 361 Conservative Party deputies took a stand against the measures — the rejection was far above the 60 votes initially expected.
During Parliament’s weekly Prime Minister question session on Wednesday, the Labor Party quickly pointed out that the approval was only due to opposition votes, with leader Keir Starmer accusing Johnson of being “the worst possible prime minister at the worst possible time.” possible”.
“His deputies are wrong to vote against basic public health measures, but they are not mistaken in distrusting him,” said Starmer, whom the prime minister is “too weak to lead.”
parliamentarian asks for resignation
Boris also faces a series of scandals, such as the revolt of public opinion with a party that would have been held in Downing Street, the seat of government, during Christmas 2020, when face-to-face celebrations were banned due to sanitary restrictions. The episode led to the resignation of an adviser to the prime minister last week and continues to yield accusations of hypocrisy at the highest levels of the government.
In Wednesday’s turbulent session, Labor lawmaker Colum Eastwood accused the prime minister of ignoring this episode and said he should resign for “eroding public confidence” in policies against Covid.
“I respect and understand the legitimate anxieties that colleagues have about restrictions on … freedoms,” Boris said. “But I believe the approach we are taking is balanced, proportionate and right for this country,” he added, saying he will continue to guide the government’s efforts to bring the population “to face the pandemic unitedly.”
Some conservative lawmakers who challenged him on Tuesday supported him on Wednesday as he answered questions from the opposition, and shortly beforehand, in an interview, Transport Minister Grant Shapps tried to play down the crisis.
“In Parliament, all sorts of things happen. Governing is difficult, especially with something like the coronavirus. There is no textbook. There is no manual to work with. And you know this government has done some things with the coronavirus where we didn’t get it right, and others where we got it right, like the vaccination program,” he told Sky News.
The fear of Boris’s allies is that he will follow in the footsteps of his predecessor Theresa May, victim of a growing uprising in 2019 over her brexit deal. The move eventually resulted in an internal motion of censure and his resignation.
Another recent episode that sparked outrage among Britons was the prime minister’s attempt to change parliamentary rules to help Conservative MP Owen Paterson — who pressured government officials to defend the interests of two companies he served as a paid consultant.
This Thursday (16), the locality of North Shropshire will organize partial parliamentary elections to fill the vacancy of Paterson, who resigned. The country has its eye on the fate of this small rural constituency in central England, and the electoral race has become a kind of referendum on Boris’s administration. If conservatives are defeated in this traditional stronghold this could be the last straw of internal discontent.
200 thousand infected a day
According to Health Minister Sajid Javid, the omicron would be infecting nearly 200,000 people a day, but the number of new cases detected on Tuesday was officially 59,610.
To prevent hospitals from collapsing, the Executive has announced the gigantic mission of offering a booster dose of the anti-covid vaccine to all adults by the end of the year.
This means 1 million injections a day, a huge logistical challenge. But Boris saw his popularity soar with the success of the first vaccination campaign and hopes to repeat the feat now.
The prime minister has spent the last few days making a series of incisive statements about the pandemic. On Sunday (12), the prime minister spoke of an inevitable “strong wave” of omicron in the United Kingdom. On Monday (13), he announced the first death related to the new strain in the country and asked people to dismiss the idea that the mutation is milder.
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