I was listening to BBC Radio Five Live the other day and there was an interview with a woman who had just arrived at Heathrow Airport from South Africa. You know, the South Africa where one of the most dangerous variants of COVID-19 exists. Anyway, the woman said, “It was a fucking joke. We just got off the plane, cleared passport control, collected our luggage and left the airport. Did I mention it was a fucking joke?” It was early in the morning, so these might not have been the actual words, but the disbelief in her voice was unmistakable. Quarantine, what quarantine?
You may recall that it was in March 2020 when Boris Johnson belatedly brought in the first lockdown, For some reason – I’m going to guess the reason is his sheer incompetence, his inability to read and understand briefings from officials and his desire to be loved – taking control of our borders wasn’t particularly important. For a man who, more than anyone else in the UK, enabled Brexit, taking back control was pretty well everything he said. With a deadly virus, he was happy to leave the borders open. Until now. Or, as we call it, next week.
Still 21,000 people enter the UK every single day with minimal to no checks, many from overseas locations where the virus is very bad indeed. So Johnson made the decision to quarantine everyone starting from…er…next Monday.
Plans have gone somewhat awry today. People arriving from the aforementioned South Africa, and other COVID hotspots, must from Monday quarantine in a hotel for 10 days at a cost of £1750. The issue today is that the government’s hotel quarantine scheme website had to be taken down as soon as it was launched, due to what we technical folk call a “cock-up”. You couldn’t make it up.
I expect the site will be up and running soon enough but what would you do if you were in a so-called red area? You’d book an early flight, before Monday, and dodge the new rules. For all we know, you might well bring a new strain into the country and drag out our lockdown for even longer. Great.
It is possible that Johnson thinks the virus will wait until the quarantine to begin next week. I don’t know about you, but I see a slight flaw within that strategy. The virus will wait for no one.
So, until next week, as in the last 11 months, our borders will allow people to arrive in the country and spread the virus even further.
As a former Remoaner, I was very happy with the freedom of movement Johnson wanted to remove from us. Now, we have lost freedom of movement, people are still free to move into Britain and help spread the virus. Confused? You bet I am, but not as confused as Johnson who continues to make it up as he goes along. Take back control of our borders, my arse.
