‘Country Closed Yet Border Open’ – Even LABOUR Say Tories Too Lax on Controls

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Jack Montgomery

Even the left-wing, pro-mass immigration Labour party is now taking Boris Johnson’s government to task over its lax border controls, as people continue to fly into the country despite the punishing internal lockdown on local people and businesses.

“The Home Secretary rarely misses a chance to talk tough. That’s why it’s so surprising that she is ducking the chance to explain why Britain’s borders are still open whilst the country is locked down, putting at risk the vaccine rollout with the threat of new variants entering the UK,” said Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds, in reference to his opposite number in government, Priti Patel.

“More dither and delay is unacceptable. The British people demand we protect our borders — we must act now,” said the opposition politician — a stunning rebuke for the Tories, who have styled themselves with no great accuracy as the party of controlled immigration and stronger borders in contrast to Labour, which has historically championed large-scale inflows and putting the brakes on deportations.

“People are absolutely incredulous as to how the country is closed yet our borders are open,” one Labour party source told The Times.

“It doesn’t make any sense. The Home Secretary can’t credibly talk tough on borders and then leave us exposed to mutations,” they added.

The Conservative party do not seem entirely with the stance of their leadership, either, with one “senior Tory” telling The Times: “The government is dragging its feet. We’re lucky our border starts at the white cliffs, they’ve protected Britain in the past and could protect us now. We need to learn from Australia and New Zealand and close our borders.”

An MP for the party added that “the borders should be shut entirely.”

“Viruses do take direct flights — but they also travel through two or three different countries to get here,” the parliamentarian explained.

As things stand, the government requires travellers from a small number of countries to quarantine in hotels on arrival — at their own expense — with Labour securing a symbolic vote on extending this to scheme to all arrivals in Parliament on Monday.

The Boris Johnson administration resisted banning travel from Wuhan, China generally, and emerging epicentres such as South Korea, Iran, and Italy in the early stages of the pandemic, assisted by public health technocrats who claimed that stopping the influx would not stop the coronavirus from spreading — although this appeared to be effective in New Zealand, for example.

The government has instructed Tory MPs to abstain in the vote on hotel quarantines.

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