PMQs: To travel or not to travel? Just “do the right thing”, says Johnson

Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson clashed this afternoon amid confusion over international travel and alarm over the spread of the ‘Indian variant’ in the UK. The Labour leader used one of his questions to ask what more could be done to reassure Jewish communities in light of recent antisemitic attacks, but all others were reserved for travel. Starmer went into the session prepared with damning facts after reports emerged last night that 110 direct flights from India, carrying around 8,500 passengers, have landed in the UK since the country was placed on the red list.

Starmer described ‘variants of concern’ as the “single biggest threat” to restrictions lifting in June. Johnson downplayed the issue, admitting only that it is “one of the issues that we must face”. The Labour leader went on to highlight that, as of this week, 170 countries moved to the UK’s ‘amber list’ and now 150 flights a day are going to such countries and travel agents are reporting a surge in holiday bookings to them. He asked the obvious question: “Why on Monday did the Prime Minister choose to weaken travel restrictions?” Starmer referred to contradictory statements from ministers this week on the circumstances in which people should travel to an amber list country, and accused Johnson of having “lost control of the messaging”.

The charge that Starmer and his team have frequently levelled at the government throughout the pandemic is that Johnson has left the UK open to further surges through haphazard border policy. Starmer reminded Johnson of Labour’s call for blanket hotel quarantine back in February, i.e. for the policy to apply to all arrivals, not just those from ‘red list’ countries. Labour has ramped up criticism in recent days: Steve Reed said at the weekend that Covid border policy had put the UK at risk from the variant, while Jonathan Ashworth accused ministers of having left UK borders “about as secure as a sieve” on Monday.

The more pressing problem is perhaps another raised by Ashworth earlier this week. Nobody can be safe from this virus until we all are, and shying away from the moral duty we have to the world’s poorest to deliver vaccines to them only undermines our own safety. The World Health Organisation director general reported in April that just 0.3% of vaccines administered had gone to people in low-income countries. US President Joe Biden recently backed the call for a temporary waiver on Covid vaccine patents to boost production and distribution. Why hasn’t the UK government?

Starmer today focused on the risk of variants to the UK and the confusing move to ease travel restrictions to certain countries. It seems his past criticisms on borders are now being vindicated. The PM argued in response that the UK has “one of the strongest border regimes anywhere in the world”. The truth is that the policy is not working. Why has the government created the amber list at all, if it really does not want people travelling to those countries? The session today left us none the wiser.

Johnson told MPs: “We’re trying to move away from endlessly legislating for everything and to rely on guidance and asking people to do the right thing.” Government messaging seemed to have improved since the ‘go to work/don’t go to work‘ 2020 confusion. But on international travel, we’ve seen a return to chaos and confusion. A cynic might argue that the uncertainty is intentional, a useful wall of ambiguity to hide behind. If the UK sees another wave of cases that comes too early in the vaccination rollout, it may be put down to people not ‘doing the right thing’.