Brexit leader Nigel Farage has criticised the British government for acting as if it owned Britons’ liberty and warned that Monday will not be the so-called ‘Freedom Day’ as restrictions will certainly return in the autumn.
Recent events in the days since Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the lifting of most restrictions for Monday have dampened the notion that the 19th is a ‘Freedom Day’, with the House of Commons on Tuesday night voting for mandatory vaccinations for care home staff, a move that privacy campaigners have warned could usher in demands from other employers that staff be vaccinated.
Despite the legal end of the mask mandate, Johnson has recommended that travellers still wear masks on public transport, with London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan announcing on Tuesday that it will still be demanded of passengers on Transport for London (TfL) services, stating on Wednesday that “enforcement staff” will be empowered to refuse service to those with uncovered faces. Supermarkets and shops are also still considering their policies, meaning that Britons might be largely continuing to have to wear masks come the 19th.
Brexit leader Nigel Farage noted that Monday’s designation of ‘Freedom Day’ was largely meaningless, telling GB News on Tuesday: “Let’s be frank. it’s not Freedom Day, is it? We all know that many of the restrictions will still be in place. There will be little normality in life.”
Mr Farage added that by autumn, when the children return to school and infections rise, “I have little doubt we’ll be back in some form of lockdown by September.”
Lockdown sceptic Conservative MPs have also predicted that government restrictions could return in autumn or winter, despite Prime Minister Johnson having previously said that the end of restrictions this summer was “irreversible”.
Farage also condemned the government for acting as if it owned Britons’ freedoms and as such, people should be “grateful” to have them returned to them in piecemeal.
“The idea that we should be grateful to the government that normal life can resume… I rather object to the concept. What right do they have to say that they own our freedom? That’s the premise, here, isn’t it? They own our freedom. They own our freedom and liberty,” Farage said on Tuesday.
While the Brexit leader criticised the government, particularly for having “gone for fear” in convincing Britons to accept restrictions on their freedoms, he admitted that he was disappointed that people had not fought harder to preserve them.
“I had expected this country — which I always thought was freedom-loving with a belief in liberty — to protest a bit more than we have,” He said, adding: “I’m still surprised that the number of people I talk to who are extremely cautious about what they do and appear to be happy to live second-class lives. I’m just not one of them.”
The majority of polling since the beginning of the pandemic has shown that Britons allegedly largely back lockdown measures, including the mask mandate, with nearly eight in ten Britons admitting they felt some level of nervousness about the end of restrictions on Monday.
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