Wales’s First Minister Mark Drakeford has banned pubs and other hospitality venues from selling alcohol and subjected them to a 6 pm curfew. The Labour politician is also considering travel restrictions in and out of the country.
The lockdown measures are modelled on Scotland’s Tier 3 restrictions, imposed by the country’s leftist Nicola Sturgeon of the Scottish National Party (SNP). Scotland had first banned the sale of alcohol inside pubs nationwide for two weeks in October.
Mr Drakeford said on Monday, according to WalesOnline, that from Friday, pubs, bars, cafes, and restaurants will be forced to close early and be banned from serving alcohol. Entertainment venues like bowling alleys, bingo halls, and cinemas must shut entirely. The restrictions may be ongoing, with Drakeford saying: “We will formally review these restrictions by December 17 and then every three weeks.”
Confirming that he would be considering policing people entering and leaving Wales, the leader added: “The English lockdown will end on Wednesday this week. In that context, we are looking at travel restrictions in and out of Wales and will make a further announcement later this week.”
Wales has already been subject to a strict lockdown, which resulted in English police on the border confirming that they had stopped and questioned people entering and exiting the small Celtic country.
The Labour-led regional government came under massive criticism for its restrictions in October. In an effort to create a “level playing field” for small businesses that were forced to close, large retailers were banned from selling ‘non-essentials’ to people in Wales, leading to large sections of supermarkets blocking off areas selling items like kettles, duvets, and even baby clothes.
England followed suit, ordering supermarkets to close off sections selling ‘non-essentials’ during the second lockdown, though under the rationale of “limit[ing] interactions between customers and the opportunity for the disease to spread”.
Reacting to Big Government’s oppression of consumer choice, Ben Harris-Quinney, chairman of the UK’s oldest conservative think tank the Bow Group, told Breitbart London at the time that “especially with Christmas coming, I would leave it to the public to decide what they want and need to buy, at the few shops that remain open.”
“The government is going to learn very quickly that for lives and livelihoods, many more products are important than they are able to calculate,” Mr Harris-Quinney added.
Last week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson revealed a temporary lifting of restrictions for the Christmas period. However, government scientists have appended several conditions to a family Christmas that may leave Britons feeling they have little more freedom than usual during life under corona at all.
After Mr Johnson announced that citizens can only have family Christmases in “bubbles” of no more than three households, the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) has advised against carolling, hugging, or playing board games in case you touch pieces that others may have handled. Parents in Tier 3 counties, which will cover large areas of England after lockdown ends on December 2nd, have also been banned from going to their child’s school nativity plays.