Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen
‘In anticipation of the coming crisis, [UK Prime Minister] Boris Johnson on Sunday delivered a televised address in which he…announced new measures, including a recommendation that people work from home and a legal requirement for mask-wearing in most public indoor areas. Vaccine passports will be needed to enter large venues such as nightclubs.
Viewed from Ireland, such steps look minimal, in some cases recklessly so, yet they have ignited a rebellion within his Conservative parliamentary party, where civil libertarians and Covid-deniers are resisting all new public health measures.’
Irish Times editorial, December 13
Meanwhile…
‘I read your editorial “The Irish Times view on Britain’s Covid-19 ‘tidal wave’: nobody at the tiller” with interest.
I find it somewhat astonishing that you chose to group civil libertarians and Covid-deniers together. In no way am I a Covid-denier. I have had my vaccines, try to maintain social distance and wear a mask when it is appropriate to do so, and I urge others to do the same.
I am, however, a civil libertarian. I fundamentally believe that people should have the right to make their own choices and not be penalised if theirs is not the state-approved one.
I have always believed that civil liberties are to be defended vigorously. Perhaps it is only in The Irish Times that civil libertarianism is a bad thing? Who would have thought it? ‘
Andrew Bridgen, Conservative MP, House of Commons.