Tory anti-lockdown rebels unite

DOZENS of Tory MPS have formed a backbench group to fight against a third national lockdown in December, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Mark Harper, a former government chief whip, and Steve Baker, a former Brexit minister, are the chairman and deputy chairman of the Covid Recovery Group, which launches today.

Boris Johnson pledged to give MPS a vote on the next set of restrictions in England when lockdown ends on Dec 2.

By last night 50 Conservative MPS had joined the anti-lockdown group with 45 more considering membership.

The group will be seen in Westminster as an echo of the European Research Group, a grouping of Tory MPS whipped by Mr Baker to oppose Theresa May’s Brexit deal. It will also be considered a response to the decision by Nigel Farage to apply to rebrand his Brexit Party as a new anti-lockdown party called Reform UK.

Mr Johnson has repeatedly said that

England will resume a series of regional lockdowns when national restrictions end on Dec 2. But the group will be a headache for the Prime Minister if he tries to pursue a third lockdown.

Tory backbenchers were infuriated last week to be asked to vote for the national lockdown based on inflated deaths forecasts which were quietly revised down after it came into force.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph today, Mr Harper said: “The country is badly in need of a different and enduring strategy for living with the virus that doesn’t require us to keep living under a series of damaging lockdowns and seemingly arbitrary restrictions.

“At the moment, the cure we’re prescribing runs the very real risk of being worse than the disease, and it’s important we base our decisions on informed scientific, economic and health data. In the meantime we need some much needed balance in this debate, to avoid further lockdowns and unnecessary restrictions, and to start living in a sustainable way until we get there.”

The group today publishes its three “guiding principles”.

The chief demand is that ministers publish a cost-benefit analysis of restrictions on a regional basis looking at the economic and health costs of lockdown.

The second is to end a “monopoly” on advice of government scientists and allow them to be challenged by competitive, multidisciplinary expert groups.

The third demand is to improve the measures already in place to tackle the virus, including significantly boosting the performance of NHS Test and Trace.

MPS on the steering group include Chris Green, who quit as a ministerial aide last month over the restrictions; Sir Graham Brady, the 1922 Committee chairman; Adam Afriyie; William Wragg; Sir Robert Syms; Ben Spencer; Harriett Baldwin; and Nus Ghani.

‘The country is badly in need of a different and enduring strategy for living with the virus’