Over the past two years, we have seen pensioners penalised for drinking cups of tea a bit too close to each other in their gardens, women fined for going for a walk in a reservoir slightly too far away from their homes, and we’ve seen more than 300 people charged by the police for being ‘potentially infectious’. Children were unable to visit their grandparents at care homes to share their last moments together. Families were separated from spending festive and religious periods together. I could go on. While the Government used the Public Health Act 1984 to implement many of the lockdown restrictions, the Coronavirus Act gave the Government similar extreme authoritarian powers.
From the very beginning of the pandemic, a public health emergency has been used to push through laws that bite at the very liberties we are so proud of here in the UK. I consistently warned against the risk to our civil liberties arising from the reams of guidance and regulations issued by the Government over the past two years and the powers in the Coronavirus Act.
Policing Bill
Browse the articles related to this topic below.
Join our community on Guilded.