A senior government and Conservative Party figure refused to rule out following Europe into mandatory vaccination or lockdowns for the unjabbed, only saying that the UK will not have to consider those measures as long as “people keep on taking the booster”.
Conservative Party co-chairman and Minister without Portfolio Oliver Dowden has effectively said that as long as people take the booster when the government demands, the Johnson administration will not consider following European countries down the road of mandating vaccination or lockdowns for the unvaccinated, refusing several times to rule out the British government would never subject citizens to such oppressive measures.
Responding to the news that Austria had mandated the vaccine for all and Germany was introducing lockdowns for the unvaccinated only, Mr Dowden said on talkRADIO on Friday morning: “It’s not something that we want to do or plan to do in the United Kingdom. The reason why we don’t want to and hopefully won’t have to do any of that is because of the booster.”
“So as long as people, when they get the call up, take that booster jab — it’ll be open to everyone by the end of January — I’m confident that… we’ll be able to withstand even given the challenges of this new variant,” Mr Dowden added.
Giving the minister the opportunity to clarify that “hopefully won’t have to” in fact means the government would never go down the road of forced vaccinations or lockdowns for the unjabbed, talkRADIO host Julia Hartley-Brewer interrogated: “What I heard Mr Dowden was, if you get the jab we won’t have to force you to get the jab. You said ‘it’s not something we want to do or plan to do’ or ‘hopefully won’t have to do’. There a really simple answer to this: ‘This is wrong and we will never do it.’ Why won’t you say that?”
“I do not agree in principle… with mandating vaccines, forcing people to have vaccines… the reason why we won’t have to contemplate those sorts of decisions is because of the efficacy of the vaccine and booster,” Dowden said.
The Conservative Party co-chairman for the second time avoided ruling out going down the path of Austria and Germany when pressed again, only responding: “I disagree with it profoundly in principle and I’ve also said to you we also have the tools to prevent us ever having to do that.”
Questioned a third time, Dowden again refused to rule out the Conservative-led government ever adopting such drastic procedures, merely saying repeating: “We have to keep in this world by making sure people keep on taking the booster. As long as we keep on doing that, we avoid having to contemplate any of these things.”
This is not the first time a senior figure in Boris Johnson’s government effectively said that Britons will not be subject to further restrictions as long as they do what they are told.
On October 20th, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said that in order to “keep your freedoms”, Britons must be fully vaccinated as well as boosters because “covid vaccine reduces materially over time”.
Mr Javid said at the time:
…please [book your vaccination]… not just to save lives, but to keep your freedoms too… And if we want to secure these freedoms for the long-term, the best thing we can do is to come forward once again when that moment comes.
Last month Austria announced that from February 2022, citizens will need to be vaccinated or face fines and even prison. This week, the outgoing chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel announced effectively s lockdown on the unvaccinated, with the country’s parliament set to vote on making vaccination against the Chinese virus mandatory.
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