Now here’s something I hadn’t quite bargained for. I saw this front page of today’s i newspaper, and it looks very much like Labour is going to oppose vaccine passports. This came to me as something of a surprise…
Thursday’s i – “Shutdown replaces lockdown” #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/c3FuIdboTn
— Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) July 21, 2021
Under Keir Starmer, Labour’s attitude towards the pandemic has been a strange one to try and work out. And this was unexpected for me. However, the dynamics of this parliament mean that a sizeable number of Tories would need to vote against their own side – they have a majority of 80, after all – to defeat the bill.
As I mentioned back on Tuesday however, the government wants this in place by late September. Parliament rises today for summer recess and will only sit briefly in early September before party conference season starts. So expect the possibility that MPs won’t get to even discuss it…