IDS Predicts Pressure Will Be ‘Enormous’ to Bring Back Restrictions in Autumn

LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 12: MP Iain Duncan Smith speaks at a rally for Hong Kong democracy
Laurel Chor/Getty Images
Victoria Friedman

Conservative MP Sir Iain Duncan Smith has warned that the pressure on the government to reintroduce restrictions in the autumn will be “enormous” because some believe the argument that there can no longer be any balancing of “risk” in life and that dealing with the Chinese coronavirus has become a “non-risk process”.

On Monday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that should the data dictate, when lockdown is lifted on July 19th, with it would go all of the restrictions including wearing masks — much to the chagrin of the left political establishment that wants continued face-covering on public transport.

While Mr Johnson had said in the past that the end of lockdown would be “irreversible”, Mr Duncan Smith believes that “the pressure will be enormous” to reintroduce social distancing, masks, and other measures in the autumn.

Sir Iain told talkRADIO’s Julia Hartley-Brewer on Tuesday: “I have no doubt about that at all because what we have created, now, is an argument that we cannot ‘risk’ any longer. With COVID, it’s become a non-risk process. What we have to do is get to the idea that we live our lives by balancing risks. It’s something I’ve argued from the word ‘go’.

“It’s not that we can banish the risk. The risk will be with us. But what kind of a risk is it, and how do you mitigate it and at the same time, how do you get on with your lives? That’s the balance… And we have to get the balance back, or it just won’t work, and I think we will face this again.”

The former Conservative Party leader made the remarks after a paper submitted to the government from the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (SAGE) in April and published on Monday suggest that “stronger” restrictions could be needed after the summer.

The paper says that “it is highly likely that transmission will increase in autumn and winter” and that “this may mean stronger measures may be desirable for autumn and winter”.

England’s Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty had also said on Monday: “The winter is inevitably going to be tricky and the NHS is likely to have both Covid and some resurgence of other respiratory viruses that were suppressed by the degree of lockdown last time round.”

Professor Whitty added that “this coming winter may be very difficult for the NHS” — remarks that prompted activist and actor Laurence Fox to question: “Anyone else up for a Heath service that protects us, rather than the other way round? Huge respect to the frontline staff, but seriously, I can’t protect the NHS anymore. Life’s complicated enough as it is.”

Duncan Smith, who previously claimed that Britons had been “frightened” into accepting lockdown measures due to “incorrect” scientific forecasts, also warned that “people have become conditioned” to accept restrictions “because they were told there was a single threat facing you”, which was the Chinese virus.

He further doubted the accuracy of recent polling, such as that from yesterday that said a majority of Britons back continued mask mandates, by claiming that “people give the pollsters the view they think they ought to think rather than the views sometimes in these cases that they really believe” because people had spent so long subject to rules they were expected to abide by.

Sir Iain also appeared to criticise the scientific establishment, remarking: “We have given to a group of scientists enormous power, such that they probably never had. And we’ve tested to destruction the idea that scientists know everything, which has always been thrown at us.”

He added: “The one thing we have discovered, if we are honest, is that science is accurate only to a point. A lot of it is ultimately extrapolation and opinion, and we have to recognise, therefore, that the balance of risk lies with us, at the end of the day, as people.”

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