Boris Johnson has refused to rule out a time-limited “circuit-breaker” shutdown of social and economic activity to stem the current surge in coronavirus infections.
Coming under pressure from Sir Keir Starmer at prime minister’s questions in the House of Commons a day after the Labour leader threw his weight behind an England-wide circuit-break of two or three weeks , Mr Johnson insisted he wanted to avoid the “disaster” of a second national lockdown.
But he acknowledged that the success of his three-tier regional approach will depend on co-operation from local leaders, and told MPs “I rule out nothing in combatting the virus”.
Starmer branded the PM an “opportunist” and accused him of “abandoning the science” after it emerged that his Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (Sage) recommended a circuit-break on 21 September.
But Mr Johnson retorted that the Labour leader “wants to close pubs, wants to close bars, wants to close businesses in areas across the country where the incidence is low”.
The PM said that his three-tier approach, which came into effect in England today and applies regional restrictions calibrated to the seriousness of local outbreaks, was the best way to avoid the “misery” of a national lockdown.
But he told MPs that it would work only with the co-operation of regional leaders and urged Sir Keir to put pressure on Labour’s mayors – such as Greater Manchester’s Andy Burnham – to accept tighter restrictions.
And pressed by Starmer to say whether he would rule out a circuit-break, he said: “I rule out nothing, of course, in combatting the virus.
“But we are going to do it with the local, the regional approach that can drive down, will drive down the virus if it is properly implemented.”
The PM did not deny newspaper reports suggesting that there is an 80 per cent likelihood of him moving to back a circuit-breaker within the next two weeks.
Mr Johnson was speaking shortly after civic leaders in Manchester issued a statement denouncing his three-tier system as “fundamentally flawed” and rejecting pressure to allow the city to be moved into the top group alongside Merseyside.
He attempted to blame resistance from local leaders for undermining the chances of his regional approach pushing down the crucial R rate of reinfection.
“What our advice is that if the regional measures at all levels were implemented in full with the support and the active co-operation of local leaders… those measures would deliver the reduction in the R locally, regionally, that we need in order to avert … the disaster of a national lockdown,” said Mr Johnson.
Accusing Sir Keir of an “extraordinary U-turn” over Covid restrictions, Mr Johnson claimed that Labour regarded the pandemic as a “good crisis for the Labour Party and one they wish to exploit”.
And he told Starmer to “get on to his Labour friends in those parts of the north of England where we want to work with them to put those very stringent measures in place in order to deliver the reductions that the whole country wants to see”.
But the Labour leader told him: “I know that for someone who has been an opportunist all his life this is difficult to understand, but having read and considered the Sage advice I have genuinely concluded that a circuit-break is in the national interest.
“It is the failure of the Prime Minister’s strategy that means tougher measures are now unavoidable. That is Sage’s view. Sage has advised that a circuit-breaker should act to reduce R below 1, should reset the incidence of disease to a lower level and should set the epidemic back by approximately 28 days or more.
“All three are vital and that is why Labour backs it.”
Sir Keir said: “The big problem the prime minister has … is that his two main policies – track and trace and local restrictions – simply haven’t worked. And we can’t stand by.”
