Will Boris Johnson listen to his MPs on lockdown?

In coronavirus, the Prime Minister faces both a public health crisis and an economic crisis. Up until now, Tory MPs feel as though Boris Johnson has prioritised the former. But with new figures from the ONS showing the UK economy shrank by a record 20.4 per cent in April and the furlough scheme being reduced in August, there’s a sense that the economic damage will soon have to take priority.

While repeated polling suggests the public has been receptive to lockdown measures and worry about it ending too quickly, the Conservative parliamentary party has, in large part, been agitating for a quicker easing than offered. Tory MPs have made their displeasure known at the two-week quarantine policy, the delay to the reopening of schools and most recently the two-metre rule.

So far Downing Street has been comfortable enough overriding such concerns and picking a more cautious route out of lockdown. Although a majority of the cabinet has also been agitating for more lockdown measures to be relaxed, the view in Downing Street has been that those on the outside don’t understand the complexities of the unwinding of lockdown. Given the UK is on course for one of the highest global coronavirus death tolls, caution is viewed as crucial going forward so as to not make the situation even worse.

But the return of MPs to Westminster means that these complaints are harder to put aside than they were back when MPs were all dialling in remotely and unable to meet with each other. Growing unhappiness in the Tory party means there are a few Commons votes on the horizon that could spell trouble, so there is a need to boost morale in the party.  The so-called lockdown hawks in cabinet argue that an economic crisis with no end in sight also presents a huge threat to public health. 

Behind the scenes, both the Chancellor and Business Secretary have been trying to make the case that restrictions need to be relaxed to avoid job losses that could be in the region of three million. This has had some effect, with plans to relax rules for parts of the hospitality industry – and the reopening of non-essential retail from Monday. The failure to reopen schools before the summer though means that a lot of Tory MPs simply believe these will be ineffective half measures: ‘How can you say things are getting back to normal when parents can’t leave the house to go to work?’

With a reluctant acceptance that schools won’t be open to all until September, the most important issues now for economically-focused Conservatives is the abolition of the two-metre rule. The policy sets the UK apart from its neighbours and is stricter than the WHO guidelines. The Chancellor is seen as wanting this to be relaxed and Johnson has also suggested it could be possible as the number of infections fall. Part of the reason figures in No. 10 are confident schools will be back in September is that the two-metre rule will be gone by then. 

As for how quickly it will be resigned to history, the government’s scientific advisers are reluctant to greenlight a change, with some believing it ought to be a political decision. Notably, there has been a recent change in how Johnson and his government talk about judging the scientific data for lockdown easing. Rather than just leaning on the R number, they are pointing to the number of new cases and the significance of test and trace. The sense in Downing Street is that they still need a visible change in circumstance to merit it.