Boris Johnson Defends Tiers System As His Party Threatens To Revolt

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is attempting to steady the ship that is his political party as a large number of Conservative MPs voice their discontent over his proposed return to a tiers system after the country ends its current lockdown. Over 50 Tory members of parliament have gone public with their unhappiness, but Johnson is remaining firm that his system is in the best interests of the country.

According to a tally by Sky News, a minimum of 54 Conservative MPs have either expressed anger and discontent towards the tiering or have publicly stated that they will not support the system when it goes to a vote next week.

“I totally understand why people feel frustrated, I get that,” the prime minister said about the Covid-19 restrictions, speaking on a visit to Public Health England laboratories at Porton Down, Wiltshire.

“But I really, really hope that people also understand that I think the vast majority of the British public want us to work hard, do the right thing and beat the virus together.”

The backlash from politicians on both sides comes after it was revealed that 99% of the English population will be under the two most severe tiers when the national lockdown ends on December 2. Those in tier three will face little change from the lockdown and there are worries that the country will not be able to enjoy the holiday season, although a five-day break from the restrictions over Christmas has been reported.

“I know it’s very frustrating for people who feel that they’re in a high tier area when there’s very little incidence in their village or their area. I totally understand why people feel so frustrated,” the UK PM continued.

“But the difficulty is that if you did it any other way, first of all you’d divide the country up into loads and loads of very complicated subdivisions.

“There’s got to be some simplicity and some clarity in the way that we do this.

“The second problem is that, alas, our experience is that when a high incidence area is quite close to a low incidence area, unless you beat the problem in the high incidence area the low incidence area, I’m afraid, starts to catch up.”

A collection of senior members of the Conservative party have urged Johnson and the government to publish an analysis of the predicted impact that the tightened tier system ruling will actually have on reducing infection rates across the country, in addition to how it will impact on people’s livelihoods and the wider business community.

Approximately 32 million people – 57.3% of the English population – live in areas that will fall under Tier 2 when the new restrictions come into place on December 2. 23.3 million people – 41.5% of the population – will be in the third and highest Tier from this date onwards.

Johnson and other Conservative ministers have promised rapid-result Covid-19 tests for those in Tier 3 areas in a bid to soften the blow and help bring down infections. Cash subsidies have also been promised to business, big and small, that will be affected by the continued measures.

“We’ve got tens of, perhaps hundreds of millions of lateral flow tests coming into this country. We already have a huge stockpile.

“The difficulty is not the supply at the moment, the difficulty is actually working with local government, local communities to get them doing it.”

“So the supply I don’t think is going to be the problem. The issue is going to be getting everybody mobilized, to understand the potential advantages of mass community testing.”

This week Boris Johnson has also announced his new chief of staff. The appointment of Dan Rosenfield has been confirmed by government officials and the ex-Treasury official will begin his role on December 7. Rosenfield replaces Dominic Cummings after the controversial figure resigned this month.

“(This) is a fascinating appointment for a whole host of reasons,” BBC political expert Laura Kuenssberg said, analyzing the move by Johnson.

“First off, much of the clamor in the Tory Party for a new character in the No 10 drama was someone to understand the Tory Party more.

“Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain were always criticized for being Brexiteers rather than Conservatives, never having the interests of the Tory party at heart, or a real understanding of its particular ecosystem. A former government official who does not have any links with the party is not going to answer that question.

“Second, he hails most recently from a consulting firm that does work for top flight corporate firms, before that he worked in banking and the Treasury.

“Without any comment on what his own particular views may be, the Treasury was always considered the bastion of resistance in Whitehall to Brexit. Fairly or not, it was often seen as the obstacle to dramatic change.”