New Forest MP votes AGAINST latest lockdown
Desmond Swayne thinks shutting down is a 'failed policy'
Last updated 7th Jan 2021
The MP for the Fordingbridge area says he can't understand why we're in a third lockdown - claiming the other two clearly didn't work.
Sir Desmond Swayne has been very vocal in his opposition of Covid-19 restrictions throughout the pandemic, suggesting it denies the public of its civil liberties.
He voted against the measures once again in the House of Commons yesterday (Wednesday 6th January).
Speaking in Parliament, he said he wanted to know why the Government keeps pushing for restrictions:
"The 'crazed lobby' has already begun to signal that the social control won't be over, that some restrictions will remain. Indeed, the chiefs have pointed out that they might need to be reimposed next winter.
"The Government is completely enthralled to a lobby driving a policy that has manifestly failed. It's failed, or we wouldn't be here yet again, a complete failure."
Desmond Swayne has also called lockdowns a form of 'social control'.
He says it's not worked before:
"Yet we go through increasing iterations of this policy with ever tighter controls and restrictions, in the hope that it might finally work."
During the debate in the House of Commons, Health Secretary Matt Hancock explained why the current lockdown is deemed necessary:
"The new variant of coronavirus presents us with a renewed challenge, here in Britain and around the world. Our strategy throughout has been to suppress the virus until a vaccine can make us safe, and while our collective efforts were working on the old variant, when faced with a new variant that is between 50% and 70% more transmissible, there has been no choice but to respond.
"I understand that these regulations have serious consequences, and I regret the huge costs they bring, but I know just as surely that these costs are far outweighed by the costs we would bear without action."