UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is scrapping Covid mandates amid the great ‘partygate’ scandal that has come up. It’s been reported that Johnson was seen at rule-flouting government parties including a May 2020 staff party in the garden of the prime minister’s Downing Street residence.
The mandatory masking and vaccine passport requirements will end on Thursday, Johnson announced. The current phase that has been in place was called “Plan B” which included mask mandates, vaccine passports, remote work, boosters, and public obedience of the rules imposed on them.
The changes are as follows:
- WFH guidance dropped from today
- Covid passports no longer required from next Thursday
- Face masks in schools dropped tomorrow
- Face masks in the wider community dropped from next Thursday
- Covid self-isolation stays although likely to go from March 24
“This is a moment we can all be proud of,” Health Secretary Sajid Javid said at a press conference. “It is a reminder of what this country can accomplish when we all work together.”
“We must learn to live with COVID in the same way we live with the flu,” Javid said.
This announcement comes after accusations against Boris Johnson breaking his own governmental rules regarding lockdowns.
Johnson admitted to Parliament last week that he had attended a gathering with alcoholic drinks at the prime minister’s office at Downing Street in May 2020 but said he believed it was a “work event.”
Conservatives are weighing whether to trigger a no-confidence vote in Johnson amid the public anger over the scandal dubbed “partygate”. This is an incredible turn of fortune for Johnson. Just two years ago he led the Conservatives to their largest victory in nearly 40 years. He was even touted as the British Trump for a short time.
Under Conservative Party rules, a no-confidence vote in the party’s leader can be triggered if 54 party lawmakers – 15% of the party’s House of Commons total – write letters to a party official demanding it.
“I’m absolutely categorical, nobody said to me, ‘This is an event that is against the rules,’” Johnson said Tuesday.
“When I went out into that garden I thought that I was attending a work event,” Johnson told broadcasters during a visit to staff at a London hospital.
“That is the very, very best of my recollection about this event, that’s what I’ve said to the inquiry.”
As we await the outcome of ‘partygate’ let us not forget about our own elites who flouted the lockdown rules to do as they please maskless while we were told to stay home and not leave our homes.
