Don’t pass the buck

The debate over Brexit feels like it took place in another era, such is the dramatic impact of the pandemic. The apocalyptic forecasts generated by Project Fear during the referendum never materialised, so opponents transferred their jeremiads to the period leading up to the UK’S exit.

When nothing untoward happened then, the gloomy prognostications were seamlessly attached to the transition period intended to produce a trade agreement between the UK and the EU.

Nothing that Brexit could produce by way of economic disruption remotely comes close to what we are now witnessing. Yet the agenda has not gone away. There are now concerted efforts to suggest that the Government’s failure to get to grips with coronavirus early enough was because they were distracted by Brexit.

Boris Johnson is said to have been either fixated on the UK’S departure on January 31 or too busy building a new Cabinet team to focus on the onrushing threat. Valuable time was lost and planning that should have happened didn’t.

The fact is that several meetings of the Government’s emergency planning committee, Cobra, were called in January and February, and even if Mr Johnson was not present in the early stages, the other key players in this unfolding calamity were.

Responsibility for the failure to stockpile protective equipment or obtain enough respirators must lie with the NHS, since it is the procurement body. Its managers should not wait around to be instructed by Government ministers about what is needed and or for blame then to be attached to others when the shortcomings become apparent.

The reckoning for who did what and when will doubtless come when the inevitable public inquiry into this catastrophe has taken place. But the buck-passing has already begun.