76 MPs rebelled against the renewal of the Coronavirus Act for a further six months in the House of Commons this afternoon, the largest rebellion so far against one of the Government’s Covid measures. The final toll was 484 votes to 76, giving the Government a majority of 408. The victory came in spite of the fact that Matt Hancock refused to rule out renewing the regulations again in the Autumn. MailOnline has more.
Mr Hancock told the restive chamber he “cannot answer” whether the Coronavirus Act will be retired in six months or rolled on, as he opened the debate this afternoon.
“There are parts of this Act that have allowed us to do good things that everybody would like to see like that, and so when we do come to retire this Act, which we must within one year and preferably within six months, we will need to make sure that we can continue to do that sort of thing and make sure that nurses can be enrolled as easily as possible into the NHS,” he said.
“But I cannot answer whether we will be retiring it in six months. My preference would be yes, but given the last year, I think a prediction would be hasty.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Watch Mark Harper MP, Chair of the Covid Recovery Group, speak against the Act here.
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76?
That’s it?
A cynic might say, that that is enough so that my local Conservative Councillor can point to it and say to me, “But look, Conservatives are the only ones in Parliament voting against the lockdowns!”. A vocal but totally ineffective set of Conservative MPs opposing the Government may suit Johnson very well come the May elections.
It’s a start.
Her Majesty’s Most Loyal and Pointless Opposition AWOL again..
Shit heads !!!!
Flattery will, unfortunately, get you nowhere!
Whats the point of an opposition that blindly goes along with everything this government says and doesn’t oppose anything?
Incredible!
Yes – but it is more like the other way round.
Because they want the precedent to be set to declare an emergency and take powers for themselves. They don’t oppose tyranny,and are on the side of cancel culture.
Ben Bradshaw, Exeter, Labour was at pains to announce he would not be voting to renew Covid regs, does anyone know how he voted ? (Google is not my friend).
Note to Toby, did you really have to use That photo of gurning hancock ?
Against.
Good for him although until very recently he was of the ‘lockdown sooner, harsher, longer’ persuasion.
Tactical move against Starmer? Ben stood for deputy leader in the vote that returned J. Corbyn as Leader.
Strange – he has never been right on anything else.
Yes – he did vote against. More than my MP, who obviously didn’t follow my advice :-(. Along with 35 Tories and 20 other Labour.
Anyone who wants to check :
https://votes.parliament.uk/Votes/Commons/Division/988?byMember=True#noes
Thank you RickH.
My gutless MP abstained. The only labour one to have done so.
yes my gutless Conservative and U-turn party MP abstained too. I see IDS abstained as well; thought he would have been a ‘no’.
Boris looks more like Samuel Johnson, or Robbie Coltrane as Samuel Johnson in Blackadder, every day. If only Boris would heed Samuel who said – Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome. So it appears with scrapping lock down.
The Coronavirus Act had 2.5 years to run…if deemed necessary. Do you really think they are going to rescind that power any day soon?
Of course not. I noted that at the time. That’s why I don’t believe there will be any normal to return to. After two years, this tyrannical form of government and social control will be the new normal, as Johnson said right at the beginning.
Shocking decision, as is the Segregation talk
When representational democracy is finally extinguished , can the last member to leave parliament please turn off the lights.
Couldn’t agree with you more, total disgrace; as I have said before, where is Cromwell when you need him!
Cromwell wasn’t the man in the end – he was the proto-Starmer.
We need Rainborough and the Agitators – to win this time.
I read that as alligators – they would work too 🙂
76 rebels?! Heaps of pathetic spinelessness. Where is the fucking opposition in any of this shit show? Christ this is just going to go on forever.
Well I for one take heart to see that at least one MP in Lincolnshire has some balls, and can only hope that his colleagues in the party follow suit and start to cultivate some. I tell you what though, there is some serious discontent here in the home county of Margaret Thatcher. Anti-lockdown leaflets are dropping through the letterbox, and there are real RAGING arguments online about a local care home making it “no jab, no job”. Yet again a government and its corporate parasites completely misjudge its electorate. People only returned Johnson to “get Brexit done”. And now he has, they want to see the back of him and all his lackeys, including our local MPs. They don’t blame HIM per se, seeing him as a helpless bellend who couldn’t be expected to hold up this long in a genuine crisis. But they do expect the PARTY to sort it out. They don’t vote for a person. They vote proper conservative and they don’t expect to get this shit for their trouble. I do hope the Libs field someone decent in all their patches because whilst I doubt anyone will vote Labour round here in enough quantity to… Read more »
“Yet again a government and its corporate parasites completely misjudge its electorate.”
Because they only take notice of skewed and biased polls that give them the answers they want.
Though the LibDems have been a shit show through most of this until they finally, a year in, found a tiny bit of spine still remaining. My own L MP is beyond useless. Parroting not just the government line but the worst kind of sentimentalised and intellectually empty SM crap of the ‘but just one life’ type. An utterly pointless waste of space. So I wouldn’t hold out much hope. Morons, the lot of them.
What’s that quote about a shiver running round the chamber looking for a spine to run up? Yeah, that one. Feckless, unprincipled, pocket-lining psychopaths.
You can’t really blame the govt or the scientists when only 76 MPs voted against can you.
As much as I hate to say it, if such an overwhelming majority of parliment supports these lockdowns then surely this is what the people want so you cant blame scientists or politics. People have brought this onto themselves it seems.
About the only positive I can take from this is that I the tide is turning. I was following the comments on the Times article on this subject. If you were sceptic four weeks ago, then you were clearly in the minority. But the lockdown wishers are in the minority on this topic – it gave me a little bit of hope.
Interestingly, somebody pointed out that the article was posted after most, well, older people will have gone to bed and that the balance would change in the morning. They were right but they are still now roundly being rebuked.
Has anyone cottoned on to the fact that six months from now (CORONA virus act extension) will be approaching the time the next upper respiratory infection season starts? Funny that. Cynic? Moi?
Jeez fsckin’ H Christ, you could at least give a warning before displaying a picture of Mutt ‘Two faced’ Handcock.