The Covid-19 virus is endemic, has spread globally and will endure. Consequently, public policy must be sustainable, comprehensible and relatively stable. Erratic ‘stop-go’ approaches to opening and closing society have failed to suppress the virus and have contributed to a state of public fear. Successive lockdowns wrongly prioritise Covid-19 deaths at the expense of all other – possibly greater – categories of mortality and threaten to undermine the liberties and embedded freedoms of the British people. Further, they risk causing a prolonged economic depression with generational effects on welfare and on wider society. A largely vaccinated society must firmly re-establish the social patterns curtailed during lockdown.
POLICY PLEDGES:
- The government’s pandemic strategy shall be based on bolstering NHS treatment capacity together with implementing reliable test, trace and isolate systems and supporting key workers.
- Hospitals, schools, universities and all other public facilities are to fully open, with sustainable measures implemented within those institutions to protect vulnerable citizens.
- Voluntary vaccination shall continue to be facilitated and strongly encouraged. However, mandatory vaccination is unacceptable in a free society and will not be pursued.
- The government will not issue ‘vaccine passports’ to control citizen’s access to services, venues and events.
- Certificates of vaccination shall be prohibited as conditions of new contracts of employment, with the exception of employers of staff in direct contact with vulnerable citizens.
- Existing employees shall not be subject to a requirement to demonstrate vaccination as a new condition of employment, with the exception of employers of staff in direct contact with vulnerable citizens.
- Government shall prioritise the preservation of domestic freedoms and an open society over demands for unfettered international travel.
- An expert governmental committee shall be convened (running parallel to SAGE and NERVTAG) tasked with assessing and quantifying current and long-term collateral costs of lockdowns and other virus suppression measures on health, the economy and welfare.
- The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) will be tasked with identifying the aggregate excess public debt generated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
- To make sure debt incurred under Covid-19 neither imposes a new era of austerity nor undermines Britain’s financial credibility, the government will transfer this debt to a separate UK Covid 2080 Sinking Fund, which will pay the debt off over 60 years.
- Income from bonds issued within the UK Covid 2080 Sinking Fund will be tax-free for UK citizens.