Return of local Covid lockdowns risks public backlash, MPs warn
The return of local lockdowns in England would trigger a huge public backlash and inflame community tensions, MPs have warned, as ministers said restrictions could remain in Covid hotspots next month.
George Eustice, the environment secretary, suggested that areas where the new, virulent strain of Covid is most widespread may have to remain in a local lockdown while freedoms return for the rest of the country on 21 June.
He said: “If we do have a deterioration in some of these areas then, of course, we can’t rule out that we would put in place certain local lockdowns.”
One suggestion reportedly under consideration is that areas with a high number of cases of the variant first identified in India – such as Bolton, Blackburn with Darwen and Bedford – would be placed in the equivalent of tier 4, meaning pubs, restaurants, nonessential shops and gyms are closed and people are told to leave home only for essential reasons.
There would be significant public anger if curbs were imposed in Greater Manchester and Lancashire, where restrictions have been in place for most of the last 15 months and longer than anywhere else except Leicester.
Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, said he would oppose such a move. He said: “Last year, tiers did not work – they did not stop the spread of the virus. It would be hard for me to put out a message of caution in Greater Manchester when nationally the messaging is very different, that the roadmap is proceeding. We struggled with that mixed messaging all of last year.”
The government would also face opposition from some of its own MPs, including influential backbenchers such as Graham Brady and William Wragg. Wragg, the MP for Hazel Grove in Stockport, Greater Manchester, told Hancock on Monday to boost vaccinations in the region rather than “to flirt even momentarily with the idea of imposing local restrictions, which are not helpful and create a great deal of resentment”.
Yasmin Qureshi, the Labour MP for Bolton South East, said people would be “incredibly upset and very angry” if their freedoms were taken away again. Bolton has the highest infection rate in the UK after an increase of the B.1.617.2 variant first detected in India.
Bolton and nearby Blackburn with Darwen accounted for a fifth of the UK’s 2,323 confirmed cases of the B.1.617.2 variant, although hospitalisations have remained low.
Qureshi said the government was peddling a “dangerous” narrative of blaming people who have not been vaccinated for the resurgence in cases, which she said had already manifested in an “element of racism” from some. Those tensions would worsen, she said, if Bolton was kept in restrictions.
Mark Logan, the Conservative MP for Bolton North East, shared the sentiment. “I absolutely vehemently oppose pointing fingers or blaming people, especially down group lines,” he said. Some groups or people may have an array of reasons to be hesitant, he added, but “you deal with what you have, and at the moment, we have a high infection rate across the metropolitan borough of Bolton so we have to, as one community in Bolton and as one country, pull together”.
Logan has been pushing for the mass rollout of the vaccine to all adults in the area, pointing out that aside from three weeks last July, Bolton has been in some form of restrictions since the start of the pandemic. “People are just fatigued and businesses want to get back to operating as freely as possible and as soon as possible,” he said.
Transmission in the town has been among younger age groups, he said, with a risk of the variant spreading between multigenerational households, which is why his argument is that the best way to tackle to outbreak was with surge vaccinations. “We want Bolton to be the first town in the UK to be vaccinated,” he said.
In a meeting with Matt Hancock, the health secretary, on Friday morning, the leader of Bolton council, David Greenhalgh, said there could be “civil unrest” and damage to the community if the town was put into a local lockdown, the Guardian understands.
The government decided to heed the warnings and not impose any extra measures on Bolton then, but Greenhalgh continued to fight against restrictions being imposed locally.
“We have been here before. All that will happen is people will travel outside the borough, sometimes 50 yards up the road across a boundary, to access hospitality. It does not work. And our hospitality is left struggling again, and on its knees,” he said.