Tory rebellion for vaccine passport vote
All areas: Afriyie against and May abstains
Windsor and Maidenhead’s MPs were both notable absences from the list of ‘ayes’ as plans for vaccine passports were voted through Parliament on Tuesday.
Boris Johnson suffered a significant Tory rebellion as plans to introduce the measures at larger venues, such as nightclubs, were passed.
Punters will require proof of double-vaccination or a negative test within the last 48 hours.
Despite MP concerns, the measure passed 369 in favour, 126 against on Tuesday.
MP for Windsor, Adam Afriyie, was among the hundred or so Tories who rebelled against the proposals.
Writing on his Twitter, he said: “Vaccine passports would usher in an authoritarian state that unfairly discriminates against minority groups, takes control of our bodies and forces people to show their papers on demand.
“Not on my watch. I will fight tooth and nail against them and mandatory COVID vaccines.”
Meanwhile, Maidenhead MP Theresa May, who earlier this month told Parliament ‘we cannot respond to new variants by stopping and starting sectors of our economy’, did not vote either way.
Her office had not responded to a request for comment at the time of going to press.
Joy Morrissey, Conservative MP for Beaconsfield, voted in favour.
“I have been very troubled by
the notion of so-called vaccine passports,” she wrote on her Facebook.
“My instinct is that they are an affront to British and democratic values and the evidence seems clear that they do not work.
“However, I am persuaded that what the Government has come forward with puts the focus on testing, with COVID certification as a secondary measure.”
She added that she ‘would have preferred’ for testing to be the sole element of the policy.
Labour MP for Slough, Tan Dhesi, voted in favour of the measures, in line with the majority of Labour MPs.