Boris Johnson must end the absurd, dystopian and tyrannical lockdown
On March 23, as we debated the Coronavirus Act, Boris Johnson told the nation in a statement, “From this evening I must give the British people a very simple instruction - you must stay at home.”…
But there was no new law in force until 1pm on March 26.
That’s when the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations were signed into law by Matt Hancock under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984. While most of us complied by voluntary consent, where the police enforced the rules in the meantime, they were enforcing a proclamation. Whatever the necessities, that the rule of law should have been overthrown in this period is extraordinary and deeply troubling.
Only today do those rules enforcing the most draconian restrictions in British history come before the Commons for retrospective endorsement with just two hours debate and no division. We have lived under house arrest for weeks by ministerial decree – a statutory instrument that parliament had no foresight of and no opportunity to scrutinise or approve before it changed life in this country as we know it. The situation is appalling…
These extraordinary measures require not only legal authority but democratic consent. There is a real possibility that they have had neither.
A judicial review is being brought against the lockdown laws, claiming they are ultra vires – that is, that ministers have no legal authority to impose them in the way they did – and that they incur a disproportionate interference with fundamental rights and freedoms. There is serious legal scholarship supporting that view. I fear the present rules may be unlawful.
Meanwhile, the CPS is reviewing every single charge, conviction and sentence brought under emergency powers after civil liberties group Big Brother Watch detailed a string of wrongful convictions in a damning review. The zealous criminalisation of people for activity that, until a few weeks ago was entirely ordinary, has concerned many, including me. I am horrified by the expansion of the surveillance state, with thermal imaging cameras, drones, ANPR and location tracking being deployed at the drop of a hat to police the nation into imprisonment at home.
