Covid curbs prompt pushback
Brexit ‘godfather’ slams PM Johnson French shop owners told not to challenge lockdown rules Iran reports record high number of Covid deaths
LONDON — A wave of Covid curbs has stirred resistance across Europe, with the right-wing British politician who helped force a referendum on Brexit harnessing popular anger at a new lockdown by recasting his Brexit Party under a new banner.
The UK, which has the highest official death toll in Europe from Covid-19, is grappling with more than 20,000 new virus cases a day and scientists have warned the ‘worst case’ scenario of 80,000 dead could be exceeded.
Cast by his supporters as the godfather of the movement to quit the European Union, Brexit Party founder Nigel Farage said Johnson had terrified the United Kingdom into submission over the coronavirus with a second lockdown.
“The single most pressing issue is the government’s woeful response to coronavirus,” Farage and Brexit Party chairman Richard Tice said in a joint article in The Daily Telegraph, announcing his Reform UK party.
“Ministers have lost touch with a nation divided between the terrified and the furious. The debate over how to respond to Covid is becoming even more toxic than that over Brexit.”
Instead of a lockdown, Farage, who as head of the Brexit party whipped up popular opposition to immigration, proposed targeting those most a risk, like the sick and the elderly, but said ordinary people should not be criminalised for trying to live normal lives such as meeting family for Christmas.
France, Germany, Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands and other countries have announced new curbs on movement and gatherings as infections surge and hospitals and intensive care units fill up. —
The single most pressing issue is the government’s woeful response to coronavirus.” Nigel Farage, Brexit Party founder
We are in a dramatic situation at the start of the cold season. It affects us all, without exception.”
Angela Merkel, German leader