Farage Slams Vaccine Passports as ‘Infringement on Our Liberties’

Former UK Independence Party leader and Brexit spearhead Nigel Farage speaks during the an
MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
Victoria Friedman

Brexit leader Nigel Farage has slammed vaccine passports as an “infringement on our liberties” and predicts the government will bring back lockdowns if Chinese coronavirus cases rise.

“I think we’re not too far away from the government following Scotland and making us have vaccine passports,” Mr Farage said during a live Farage at Large event in Folkestone, Kent, for GB News this week.

Adding: “I just don’t think that makes any sense. I don’t believe that is a reasonable step to take. It’s too big of an infringement on our liberties.”

The Brexit leader made the comments after Scotland and Wales introduced domestic vaccine passports for entering large entertainment venues like nightclubs and stadiums, with fears the measures could soon be heading to England and Northern Ireland.

Over the Summer, Prime Minister Boris Johnson threatened to introduce vaccine passports for nightclubs in England at the end of September. While the plans were cancelled, ministers later said that the measure remains in reserve if hospital numbers increase over the Winter, as part of what has been dubbed Plan B, which could see the return of the mask mandate and work-from-home orders.

The government has recently come under pressure from the NHS Federation and the British Medical Association to reintroduce mandatory masks in public enclosed spaces and on public transport. The calls were rejected, but Health Secretary Sajid Javid did threaten Britons that to “keep your freedoms”, you must get vaccinated.

Farage said of the health secretary’s comments: “The government was slightly cagey. They don’t want to go for Plan B, but Sajid Javid basically said unless you go and get your booster jabs, you will lose your freedoms — which struck me as being something of an oxymoron.

“He’s gone further overnight. He says: ‘If we feel at any point it’s becoming unsustainable… we won’t hesitate to act.’ That means only one thing: they are contemplating locking us back down again if the case rates get to 100,000 a day and if the numbers being admitted to hospital get too high.”

Speaking to The Times on Saturday, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak said that the government would not revisit lockdowns because of the success of the vaccine programme.

“I think we’re just in a very different place to where we were a year ago because of the vaccine,” Mr Sunak told the newspaper of record, continuing: “There’s this enormous wave of protection, and that changes things. That’s our first line of defence.”

“There’s a range of options that are available, and those are not options that involve lockdowns or very significant economic restrictions,” he said.

Prime Minister Johnson likewise suggested on Friday that it was unlikely there would be a return to lockdowns, saying: “I’ve got to tell you at the moment that we see absolutely nothing to indicate that that is on the cards at all.”

Mr Farage warned that if the government did consider fresh lockdowns, Britons would simply disobey.

“The government knows something: that we have been very well behaved, very well compliant over the course of the last couple of years and I’ve sense we’re getting close to breaking point. I sense if they try and lock us back down again, there will be many millions of people who will say: ‘the hell with it,'” Mr Farage said.

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