Ashworth: I had to make the case within Labour for lockdown

Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth has revealed to LabourList that he had to make the case within the party for its original demand for a coronavirus lockdown in the UK.

In a 40-minute interview with LabourList’s editor, which was broadcast live on Tuesday evening, Ashworth said: “We called for lockdown ahead of the government doing it.

“To be frank, when I called for it, there were people on the Labour side who were very reluctant for us to call for going into lockdown.

“There were people on the Labour side, senior figures on our side at the time, who were very nervous about the civil liberties implications of that. I had to win, or make the case internally, for why we should call for a lockdown.”

Ashworth also warned that a second coronavirus wave in the UK “could be disastrous” – but denied that Labour might regret supporting the July 4th easing of lockdown if the second wave did take place.

“No, because I think it’s just self-evident that you cannot stay in lockdown forever. The point of a lockdown is to crunch this virus right down, squash these infection rates and try to drive the virus out.

“But ultimately if a vaccine isn’t available and anti-viral drugs are not available until, what, next year, I don’t think it’s a realistic prospect for any of us to stay in lockdown until next year.

After setting out the various harmful consequences of lockdown, he added: “I’m just making the point that a lockdown is important to suppress this virus but it is a blunt tool. It is a blunt tool that has other long-term social and health implications.

“Which is why we supported the measures announced, Keir Starmer supported the measures announced, to ease lockdown… but of course this is always kept under review.”

The shadow cabinet member confirmed that Labour still stands by its 2019 commitments to repealing the Health and Social Care Act, ending privatisation in the NHS and setting up a National Care Service.

Ashworth was also asked about his conversation with a Tory chairman, leaked shortly before the 2019 general election polling day, in which he described Labour’s chance of winning as “dire”.

The Leicester MP said: “I understand why I got a lot of stick for it. I actually thought I was exaggerating how bad things were to some Tory mate, to give him a bit of false sense of what it was like.

“Little did I realise that the general election result was going to turn out to be far worse than what I thought was my exaggeration to this guy.”

Watch the full interview below.