Freedom Day
Sun
COMPULSORY mask wearing will be ditched when Covid restrictions are finally relaxed on Freedom Day, The Sun on Sunday can reveal.
Boris Johnson plans to tear up laws which force people to cover their faces on buses and trains, and in shops and other indoor venues.
The Prime Minister wants to make it a personal choice rather than a legal requirement enforced with fines of up to £6,400.
And Mr Johnson will end the need to check in by signing a form or scanning a code when you go to a pub or restaurant.
Ministers are also discussing the possibility of allowing boozers to order drinks at the bar again.
Mr Johnson has won support from new Health Secretary Sajid Javid for scrapping the mask wearing rules on July 19.
But he faces a tough battle to win over senior medical advisers who insist the precaution will still be needed for many months.
A source said: “It’s all part of a shift from legal enforcement to common sense.
“There will be some official guidance that in certain settings, like a crowded train, it might make sense to wear a mask.
“But it will no longer be compulsory. People will be able to decide for themselves whether or not to cover their face.”
One minister told The Sun on Sunday: “It’s all about learning to live with Covid. This virus is going to be around for some time and with so many of us now vaccinated, we’re going to have to make up our own minds on when to cover up.”
Telegraph
Boris Johnson has signed off on plans to end the compulsory wearing of face masks from July 19, The Telegraph understands, as the Prime Minister prepares to declare this week that the link between Covid-19 infections and hospitalisations has finally been broken.
Mr Johnson is expected to lay out a blueprint for how England will live with the virus, as ministers prepare to replace swathes of legal restrictions with a call for “common sense” and “personal responsibility”.
As part of the move, the Government is expected to ditch the compulsory wearing of masks, along with the one-metre-plus rule that pubs and restaurants have warned is crippling them.
The legal requirement for customers to sign in at bars, restaurants and other venues using QR codes or by handing over contact details is also due to be dropped.
Announcing the changes this week, an increasingly bullish Mr Johnson is expected to cite recent data and modelling to declare that, while infection rates will rise as restrictions are eased, the successful roll-out of Covid-19 vaccines means that the numbers of hospitalisations and deaths are no longer rising at the same scale as before.
Similar stories appear in the Express, Times, Independent, ITV News, Evening Standard,
Mail
Sajid Javid today says the best way to protect the nation’s health is to lift the remaining coronavirus restrictions.
Writing exclusively for The Mail on Sunday, the new Health Secretary says: ‘The economic arguments for opening up are well known, but for me, the health arguments are equally compelling.’
His comments mark a sharp change in tone from that of his predecessor Matt Hancock, who was forced to resign last weekend after his affair with an aide was exposed.
They come as Boris Johnson prepares to announce a raft of measures to come into force from July 19 which will ‘make Britain the most open country in Europe’.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that under Freedom Day plans expected to be signed off by the Cabinet tomorrow:
The Prime Minister is ‘determined’ that fully vaccinated Britons will be able to travel to amber-list countries including Spain and Greece without having to self-isolate when they return;
Wearing face masks will become voluntary everywhere – including on public transport – with the exception of hospitals and other healthcare settings;
Those who have received two doses of a vaccine will not be required to self-isolate or take Covid-19 tests if they are alerted that they have come into contact with someone with the virus – but tests will still be available for all those who want them;
The school ‘bubbles’ system that has seen hundreds of thousands of pupils being forced to self-isolate at home will be axed and replaced with daily testing;
Restaurants, pubs and shops will no longer have to demand that customers provide their personal data or sign in with a ‘QR’ code.
A No 10 source told The Mail on Sunday: ‘This is a big injection of freedom that will make us the most open country in Europe.’
Mr Johnson is expected to set out the findings of a social distancing review this week, before confirming details of the greatly relaxed rules on July 12.
The developments came as Britain’s world-beating vaccination programme continued apace. The latest figures showed 85.7 per cent of adults have now had their first jab, with 63.4 per cent getting both doses of a vaccine.
In his article, Mr Javid says the UK is ‘on track’ to escape almost every vestige of lockdown on July 19, adding: ‘We will have a country that is not just freer, but healthier, too.’
But he makes no secret of the challenges he faces as Health Secretary, admitting that he has ‘the biggest in-tray I’ve had at any department – and I’ve run five’.
Setting out his priorities, he writes: ‘The first is how we restore our freedoms and learn to live with Covid-19. The second is to tackle the NHS backlog – something that we know is going to get far worse before it gets better.
Mail
July 4, 2020 held special meaning for many Americans.
It was not only a celebration of U.S. independence but a celebration of personal freedom as well.
After much of the country went into lockdown during spring due to the COVID-19 pandemic – closing stores, restaurants, movie theaters and other small businesses – many felt that things were finally going to return to normal.
Instead, the holiday kicked off a summer suffering, and produced the second largest surge of the pandemic with an average of about 68,000 cases and 900 deaths per day.
Cases are down 83 percent compared to last year at about 11,000 per day and deaths have plunged 66 percent to 300 daily, and 54 percent of the population has had at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose.
But doctors tell DailyMail.com they have some fears another surge could form after the holiday this year just like the year before.
‘The July surge was incredible,’ Dr Marjorie Bessel, chief clinical officer of Banner Health in Phoenix, Arizona, told DailyMail.com in reference to last year.
The July 4 holiday kicked off a massive swell of cases in the U.S. that would not get under control until deep into autumn.
More than 100,000 Americans died over summer 2020 – with a death toll of 100,000 recorded May 26 and 200,000 recorded on September 22 – as the nation lost control of the pandemic.
The state of Arizona became a COVID-19 hotspot, and hospitals like Bessel’s were overwhelmed with patients.
Covid
Express
A GROUP of scientists in Britain who want to push for continued and tougher lockdowns are set to launch an international “zero covid” network later this month.
The Sunday Express has learnt that members of Independent Sage are to be part of the launch of an international group called the World Health Network which will push for a “zero covid” strategy of maintaining lockdowns. The revelation came at an online meeting of the Zero Covid campaign group last week where trade union officials told attendees about how covid is a means of recruiting members and how the ultimate goal has to be “to bring down capitalism.”
The news about the new international network was announced at the end of the meeting Yaneer Bar-Yam, an American physicist who is a member of the Covid Action Group which includes the members of Independent Sage including controversial behavioural scientist Professor Susan Michie, who is a member of the Communist Party.
It follows MPs last month questioning why three Independent Sage members including Professor Michie, her husband Professor Robert West, and Professor Stephen Reicher, all behavioural scientists, are also official government advisors.
Dr Bar-Yam, a leading member of the Covid Action Group, told the meeting of leftwing Zero Covid activists that a closed conference not open to the public will be held on 14 and 15 July to launch the World Health Network.
He said: “We have a globalised team primarily of scientists called the Covid Action Group. [This is] morphing into the World Health Network [with] very enthusiastic participation from Indy Sage, ISAG (Independent Scientific Advocacy Group), Covid Germany, and reaching out to parents groups and others.
Sun
THE UK’S daily Covid cases have fallen in the last 24 hours with 24,855 Brits testing positive compared to 27,125 reported yesterday.
Meanwhile deaths have also fallen, with 18 reported compared to 27 yesterday.
Despite this, the number of people testing positive for Covid has still surged by almost 67 per cent in just a week.
The news comes as Boris Johnson is considering scrapping “bubbles” from schools and putting an end to pupils self-isolating following a positive Covid contact, it has been reported.
The PM is said to be working on a five-point rescue plan to help ease the impact of the pandemic on children amid growing pressure from MPs.
The Daily Telegraph reports details of the leaked eight-page plan which was written by officials in the Cabinet Office’s Covid-19 task force.
One of the proposed changes would be to scrap “bubbles” from schools from July 19 – the earliest date England could reopen.
Brexit
Telegraph
The UK’s three-month truce with the EU is a “sticking plaster” that addresses just a “tiny part of the problem” with the Northern Ireland Protocol, Lord Frost has suggested, as he warns that mainstream unionist support for the agreement has “collapsed”.
In an interview with The Telegraph, the minister responsible for Brexit said the agreement was failing to “reflect the balance that was in the Good Friday Agreement” and therefore “is not working”.
The Government’s “worry”, he said, was that the UK and EU “just lurch from date to date, and crisis to crisis, and find sticking plaster fixes, but never deal with the underlying problem”.
He claims that some EU leaders are more focused on “process” than on addressing the problems that have arisen, such as the recent “sausage wars” row, and warns that potential disorder in Northern Ireland must be “factored in” to their consideration of the issue.
A similar story can be found in the Express.
EU
Express
BRUSSELS has been accused of using the Northern Ireland protocol to deliver a “Brexit punishment” to the United Kingdom by applying tougher standards than it demands elsewhere.
Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay claims it has shown much more flexibility with the French Caribbean territory of Saint Martin, which is part of the European Union, and the other half of the island – Sint Maarten, which although an autonomous country within the Netherlands is not in the EU. Despite St Martin being part of the EU single market, its tourist website boasts: “There is no physical border between the French side of St Martin and the Dutch side of St Maarten. The movement of people and goods is completely open.”
Mr Mackinlay argues this shows the EU could adopt a more flexible approach to the Northern Ireland protocol. He claims that it is not worried about products from the United States entering EU territory via Sint Maarten.
He said: “Whilst the argument (by the EU) might be made that there is little to no transfer of goods from St Martin to France or mainland EU, the French side of Saint Martin is properly and absolutely within the EU and its single market as part of France. The parallels with the Republic of Ireland (no land border with the rest of the EU) are obvious.”
The protocol has avoided the need for border checks with the Republic of Ireland but there is deep frustration in unionist circles that it has impeded trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The EU has agreed to a three-month delay to a ban on the export of meat products such as fresh sausages from Great Britain to Northern Ireland but Cabinet Office minister Lord Frost has warned there is a “very large number of problems with the way the protocol is currently operating”.
Illegal immigration
Telegraph
Migrants intercepted in the English Channel could be arrested on arrival in the UK, under the Government’s Borders Bill, which will also make it harder for asylum seekers to prove they should remain in the country.
The Nationality and Borders Bill, which will be laid in Parliament on Tuesday, will create new offences for arriving in the UK “without a valid entry clearance”, and target people traffickers with penalties for aiding illegal immigration.
The change is intended to help authorities to prosecute migrants who attempt to travel to Britain on small boats across the Channel and are intercepted by Border Force officers.
Ministers are concerned the current offence of “entering” the country without leave does not technically cover migrants being intercepted in UK territorial waters and brought to shore by the Border Force.
The new offence will be subject to a maximum prison sentence of four years, while the maximum sentence for facilitating illegal entry will increase from 14 years to life imprisonment.
Foreign aid
Times
Boris Johnson is poised to climb down and offer MPs a vote on foreign aid cuts as he is warned he risks turning the Conservatives back into the “nasty party”.
The prime minister is “actively considering” plans to allow MPs a binding vote on the £4 billion cuts to the overseas aid budget before parliament rises for the summer recess at the end of this month.
Although Johnson has yet to give his official view on the proposal, it is understood he been advised to grant the vote or risk MPs bringing forward another rebel amendment.
Well now what about that bit in the Express. Independent Sage, Zero Covid Group, World Health Network, ISAG, Trades Unions, teachers and parents, all working together TO BRING DOWN CAPITALISM!
BUT surely, any of us that believed there may be a global conspiracy at work, we were all credulous fools weren’t we?
You all ought to watch this video by The Money GPS, it’s very good. It starts by drawing comparisons between the Greek and Roman empires and how they outsourced their food production and devalued their currencies and goes on to provide some information that some will find hard to accept.
“Hyperinflation of U.S. Dollar, New Monetary System and the Meltdown of the Economy” (14 mins)
https://youtu.be/zCcNlkP2lTc
I used to write articles about some of this stuff, perhaps I will again.
……and still the suckers vote Tory!
“when Covid restrictions are finally relaxed on Freedom Day”, Yes but……..when IS Freedom Day? ‘They’ posit all these dates but….not one of the dates will count until ‘They’ say it is so and the day actually dawns. Between now and 19th July the new ‘World Health Network’ could have worked on Johnson and Javid (sounds like a music hall act!!!) and convinced them that the sky is about to fall down (Chicken Licken style!) and off we go again!
So sorry…..yawn! Yawn! I’m not biting! As far as I am concerned the war is not over until the armistice is signed. Then we can start of the war crimes trials!!!!
When you read those words ”the link between Covid-19 infections and hospitalisations has finally been broken…” you can see just how they’re playing us. Most of us are well aware of the fact that the PCR ‘tests’ are not fit for purpose, and the figures produced which resulted in these ”links”. But of course they’re relying on the fact that there are enough dimwits who don’t do any research of their own and swallow everything the BBC and other government mouthpieces tell them.
Dont they just! And doesn’t it put your blood pressure up to know that all these people think they are ‘well informed’ because ….BBC says so!
I thought at first I could say ‘I told you so’. Reading the Sun’s bit it sounded like getting rid of Hancock turned the tide and BJ was not so bad after all.
But then . . . well health settings, for instance, presumably includes my health centre.
Then there is this and that which may or may not apply to me. Grrr . . . .
Well on the whole Sajid Javid sounds pretty hopeful to me.
Tough new laws on traffickers and illegal migrants – Yet more false promises to keep the credulous Tory party faithful onside.
There is now little to put between Labour and the Tories on mass immigration. In fact the Tories over the last 80 years or more may have allowed more migrants to enter the country than Labour. With a population of between 67 and 70 million (no one seems to know exactly) we now have a migrant driven population growth requiring a huge expanse of the housing stock.
So desperate is the housing shortage that it now looks as though the Tory shires of England are now going to play a much larger and generous part in accomodating the overspill of the migrant driven population growth.
MigrationWatch video 2 mins
John Redwood’s Diary is well worth reading today, as he’s speaking about ‘Conservative’ policies like this.
No he’s not L Jones. He is criticising the Opposition for supporting all and every ‘policy’ that works against the U.K. and it’s interests.
He has, in the past criticised his own party’s planning proposals that result in building on green field sites when brown field sites are available and he has also criticised the influx of migrants. He lives in and represents a constituency in the S.E. of the country. That is a very crowded, overpopulated area.
Also J Redwood is very much against big tax and big spend policies in general. In fact he is against ‘Big State’ in general. He has supported Brexit very consistently for many years and to my mind he is very much what a Conservative M.P. should be.
Still perhaps I’ve read you wrong and you did not mean to imply that he supported the policies he was speaking about.
Pauline Redwood and few others on the centre right have as much power in stopping the march of the Tory liberal agenda as Canute did in halting the tides coming in. Redwood and one or two others play an indispensible role in keeping centre right voters onside. How could the Tories win elections without keeping the centre right onside? They tell you any sh_te you want to hear.
At least Mr Redwood has considerable success in his earnings outside of Parliament.
2013
https://www.getreading.co.uk/news/john-redwood-earned-more-100000-4051855
2020
£15,000 per month as an advisor!
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/bbc-licence-fee-mps-interests-side-jobs-dominic-cummings-398562
He is not alone – being an MP today is about getting seriously rich.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/mps-earned-5m-from-second-jobs-during-lockdown/
If he believed half of what he says he would have left the Tory party by now. Oh! But that significant second income stream depends on him being a Tory MP.!!!! They are all as devious and untrustworthy as each other. . Don’t believe one word they utter.
I’ve answered those criticisms before and I’m not going to bother again Jake. I voted Conservative at the last GE to get a Brexit of some sort. As it happened the Labour alternative in this marginal was particularly obnoxious.
Previously I had joined, voted and generally supported/worked for Ukip to the best of my ability.
A bit late but better late than never, this unfortunately applies to Blighty too. From Breitbart:
“Merkel’s Migration Policies Have Been ‘Fatal’ to Germany, Says Ex-Spy Chief”
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/07/04/merkels-migration-policies-have-been-fatal-to-germany-says-ex-spy-chief/
So the government is going to do something about illegal immigration. Excuse me if I don’t hold my breath.
JF
My sentiments exactly Julian! That ‘new legislation’ looks as if it will be full of ‘holes’ (like so much of the legislation we suffer under today). Thus the ‘Uman Rights’ Lawyers will be having a field day and the British public will be no better off. The ‘invaders’ will continue to invade and demand their ‘rights’ to be housed in swish accommodation, fed clothed and given health care and money free-gratis at the expense of the poor old British taxpayer as usual!
Definitely not impressed or convinced!!!!
I’ve had to upload these files to a server to post them, go to the URLs and click the free download button.
The first is a video (about half an hour) of a man making a formal complaint to the police regarding misconduct by a politician and the Covid vaccines. What this man has to say is frightening, if true it seems like Western governments are involved in an act of genocide against their own people.
https://ufile.io/rbhmzhrq
This next link is to two files of a leaflet that somebody sent to me from New Zealand. It is a leaflet that has appeared in every letterbox in NZ by a group called Concerned Citizens. The claims made are easily cross referenced and appear to be factual. Apparently Pfizer have admitted that taking the vaccine amounts to taking part in a medical trial and the long term effect are totally unknown, the company admits this on their web-site. These vaccines are new and untested technology, the risks must be horrendous.
https://ufile.io/f/4lkiu
This is frightening stuff, the world is going mad.
Flyer. Mike Yeadon, former VP of Pfizer is begging people not to take the ‘vaccine’. July 19 is supposed to be our new ‘freedom ‘ day. Here in South Devon we seem to have gone backwards from this time last year when we were muzzlefree and pigging out to help out following Sunak’s plea that we support local businesses. So many staff at pubs, restaurants, petrol stations, schools and so on have been pinged by track and trace in the last week that this normally buzzing holiday area is as dead as a dodo. The Pfizer jab wagon is parked on the town square from tomorrow. Project Fear continues.
Don’t know about you Ceri but I’ve never been threatened with track and trace. If I had been I’d have more sense than to comply.
That goes for all the Covid nonsense as far as I’m concerned.
I recently refused to go into the health centre for a blood test on the grounds that ‘I cannot cope with all the regulations that are in place’.
Pauline. I don’t have a smart phone and thus no NHS app. If the staff at the pubs, restaurants, hotels get pinged the place is then shut for deep cleaning and the staff have to isolate. That is the problem. I hope that some M Ps raise the point that the exponential increase in pinging means that several million will be isolating by next weekend and most hospitality venues locked just as schools break up for the summer holiday. It’s a grim prospect for the businesses that are hanging on by their toenails.
Somehow Ceri I wouldn’t set much store by MPs raising points about anything that goes against government ‘policy’. I honestly believe now that they are all complicit in this all too evident attempt to kill off Britain and its businesses for good! Anything they can do to usher in that well publicised ‘Great Re-set’. I assume that they think that by complying they will all be included in the ‘club’ that the chosen few will belong to!