MPs have today (November 4) voted to approve the government’s ‘lockdown across’ England from tomorrow until December 2.
It was carried by 516 votes to 38. South Thanet MP Craig Mackinlay voted against the measures, questioning what the restrictions will mean for other health services and for families unable to see their loved ones. He was one of 32 Conservatives who rebelled against the measures.
Sir Roger Gale, MP for North Thanet, voted in favour of the restrictions.
It means the measure will come into force from tomorrow.
These are:
Closures
- All pubs and restaurants have to close once again, although takeaways and deliveries will be permitted; A ban on the takeaway of alcohol has now been altered so that ‘click and collect’ and deliveries can be made.
- all non-essential retail, including, but not limited to clothing and electronics stores, vehicle showrooms, travel agents, betting shops, auction houses, tailors, car washes, tobacco and vape shops.
- indoor and outdoor leisure facilities such as bowling alleys, leisure centres and gyms, sports facilities including swimming pools, golf courses and driving ranges, dance studios, stables and riding centres, soft play facilities, climbing walls and climbing centres, archery and shooting ranges, water and theme parks,
- entertainment venues such as theatres, concert halls, cinemas, museums and galleries, casinos, adult gaming centres and arcades, bingo halls, bowling alleys, concert halls, zoos and other animal attractions, botanical gardens;
- personal care facilities such as hair, beauty and nail salons, tattoo parlours, spas, massage parlours, body and skin piercing services, non-medical acupuncture, and tanning salons.
- Hotels, hostels and other accommodation should only open for those who have to travel for work purposes and for a limited number of other exemptions which will be set out in law.
Exceptions
Non-essential retail can remain open for delivery to customers and click-and-collect.
Playgrounds can remain open.
Some venues will be allowed to remain open for specific exempt activities, like childcare and support groups. Support groups that are essential to deliver in person can continue with up to 15 participants where formally organised to provide mutual aid, therapy or any other form of support. This includes support to victims of crime, people in drug and alcohol recovery, new parents and guardians, people with long-term illnesses, people facing issues relating to their sexuality or gender, and those who have suffered bereavement.
Funerals and weddings
Funerals can be attended by a maximum of 30 people, and it is advised that only close friends and family attend. Linked ceremonial events such as stone settings and ash scatterings can also continue with up to 15 people in attendance. Anyone working is not included. Social distancing should be maintained between people who do not live together or share a support bubble.
Weddings, civil partnership ceremonies will not be permitted to take place except in exceptional circumstances.
Places of Worship will be closed, unless they are being used for:
- Funerals
- To broadcast acts of worship
- Individual prayer
- Formal childcare or where part of a school
- Essential voluntary and public services, such as blood donation or food banks
- Other exempted activities such as some support groups
People are to stay at home unless:
They are going to work (and can’t work from home), travelling for education, for exercise, medical reasons, escaping the risk of harm, shopping for food and essentials, providing care to the vulnerable and volunteering or visit members of your support bubble.
Outdoor exercise or visit an outdoor public place – with the people you live with, with your support bubble or, when on your own, with 1 person from another household.
Outdoor public places include:
- parks, beaches, countryside,
- public gardens (whether or not you pay to enter them), allotments
- playgrounds
You cannot meet in a private garden.
Children with separated parents can stay at both homes
Over 60s and clinically vulnerable to minimise contact
Nurseries, schools, colleges and universities will remain open.
You must not meet socially indoors with family or friends unless they are part of your household – meaning the people you live with – or support bubble.
A support bubble is where a household with one adult joins with another household. Households in that support bubble can still visit each other, stay overnight, and visit outdoor public places together.
New guidance has also been issued so that care homes can allow visits for residents.
You can go out to buy things at shops which are open, for instance for food and medicine, or to collect any items – including food or drink – ordered through click-and-collect or as a takeaway, to obtain or deposit money, or to access critical public services (see section below).
You may also leave home to fulfil legal obligations, or to carry out activities related to buying, selling, letting or renting a property.
Parents can still take their children to school, and people can continue existing arrangements for contact between parents and children where they live apart.
You can leave home for any medical reason, including to get a COVID-19 test, appointments and emergencies, to visit someone who is giving birth or dying, to avoid or escape risk of injury or harm (such as domestic abuse), to visit someone in a care home (if permitted under care home guidance), hospice, hospital, to accompany them to a medical appointment, or to go to the vets (or other animal welfare services).
You can leave home to attend a place of worship for individual prayer, a funeral or a related event for someone who has died, to visit a burial ground or a remembrance garden, or to attend a deathbed wedding.
Staying away from home
Overnight stays and holidays away from primary residences will not be allowed- including holidays in the UK and abroad. This includes staying in a second home, if you own one, or staying with anyone you do not live with or are in a support bubble with. There are specific exceptions, for example if you need to stay away from home (including in a second home) for work purposes.
You are allowed to stay overnight away from your home if you:
- are unable to return to your main residence
- need accommodation while moving house
- need accommodation to attend a funeral or related commemorative event
- require accommodation for work purposes or to provide voluntary services
- are a child requiring accommodation for school or care
- are homeless, seeking asylum or a vulnerable person seeking refuge
- are an elite athlete or their support staff or parent, if the athlete is under 18
If you were already on holiday, you should return to your home as soon as practical and comply with the ‘stay at home’ requirements in your holiday accommodation in the meantime.
New schools guidance
During the national restrictions, face coverings should be worn by students and staff in secondary schools and further education colleges in communal spaces, outside of classrooms, where social distancing cannot be maintained.
The guidance is clear that primary school children do not need to wear face coverings, and older children and young people with special educational needs or disabilities may be exempt from wearing them, depending on their need.
With 72% of the population supporting lockdowns , Craig Mackinlay is yet again out of step with most of us, believes treaties can be broken and thinks poor children should not have free school meals
Hopefully this & the Tory incompetence during this pandemic will be the turning point. Why does he keep getting voted in when the area he represents is one of the most deprived in the country & yet he does nothing but vote to make ordinary people’s lives even worse off financially & to trample all over their basic human rights?
Just remember how he has voted since he came to power in 2015-for protecting & enhancing the lives of the rich-by voting for capital tax reductions & high taxes for banks & making the already difficult lives of the average person & the poorest in society even worse-to cut the benefits of anybody out of work & against the higher rate for people who are ill & disabled as one example, against global warming measures twelve times & green energy incentives, against human rights & equality six times, against gay rights, against investigations into the Iraq War, against putting the railways back in the hands of the public & keeping it in the hands of the useless & greedy franchises three times. This man does not represent the average person in Thanet, only the rich few.
There was no viable option other than to vote for him in 2015 to stop Farage getting in, but after his aide was caught fiddling the books & convicted of this along with his arrogance & voting record there has been no excuse to put him back in. So let’s use our vote & vote this revolting sack of you know what who has now thankfully failed along with 37 other like minded members voted to kill large swathes of people & cripple the NHS rather than have a month lockdown out next year.
Funny how Mackinlay and many of his fellow Tory “rebels” are so desperate to preserve our freedoms by opposing lockdown but are quite happy with us losing our freedom to live, work and travel in the EU. As someone here has already said, he was only elected to keep Farage outand wont be here after 2024.
I’m with Craig on this. Tier 2 or 3 restrictions would’ve been sufficient for East Kent, at least for the time being.
… and (before I’m accused otherwise), I don’t “do” party politics. I just support whatever I personally feel are the right things to do.
This is the moron who wants people to be able to move freely around the country spreading the virus whilst simultaneously insisting on imprisoning the same people by removing the freedom of movement inherent in the Single Market
He never ceases to not be surprising, does he? Whatever the worst thing he could do.. He does! Can we vote him out already?
Good for any MP of any side who voted against this draconian and unnecessary national lockdown. The poll that the majority support lockdown was very small and very questionable. Many of the public and business owners and many elderly nationwide do not agree. A wide number of highly qualified medical experts globally have spoken out of the dangers of lockdowns causing more deaths than the virus itself. The Great Barrington Declaration, The Recovery Group and now a group of UK mental health experts all say this. Some of their members are more experienced and qualified than Whitty and Valance. Many businesses will no longer survive now, many will not have their medical conditions treated, suicides and mental health issues are soaring, elderly in care homes are lonely and can’t understand why their loved ones can’t see them and the mental health of the young (and especially vulnerable young who need a good school environment) are being scarred. Perhaps some of these MPs are aware of the legal case developing against them in the UK, and similar across the world including Germany and Australia. I think left vs right is pretty much a false illusion of choice, and this is certainly the case with the left mostly begging for the imprisonment of the national. That’s bizarre in many ways. We are in a dictatorship now, and people should do their own research on it all. There will be accountability one day, and when they scrutinise the data and the fear propaganda used, it will be found to be a sham.
“Many of the public and business owners and many elderly nationwide do not agree. A wide number of highly qualified medical experts globally have spoken out of the dangers of lockdowns ”
Please will you show us the representative poll that supports the statement you’ve just made?
How is it draconian? People can still buy food, still exercise outdoors etc. Yes, some business owners would rather large swathes of people die as long as they make a few quid-because they are selfish & greedy like this MP.
You will find doctors willing to say anything-Wakefield for instance who has caused all manner of problems with his flawed ant-vaccine nonsense. Please do a study of nearly 2,000 people like Mori did & present your findings.
In response to the Barrington Declaration 80 eminent epidemiologists, infectious disease experts & vaccinologists put out a counter memorandum stating that the proposed herd immunity is a dangerous fallacy unsupported by the scientific evidence.
Seeing as Covid like all bugs tears through care homes being lonely is the least of their worries-many of these people will have lived through a world war for crying out loud-now they have phones & internet with which they can connect with people outside & what do you prefer, loneliness or death?
The young need to toughen up-life is full or hardships & not being the centre of attention 24/7 will do them some good, just like it will the vapid celebrities who having been starved of their oxygen of publicity since March & nobody caring about their stupid attention seeking dance routines & making ridiculous statements from their bathtub have realised how pointless they are in a time like this.
Please do your research on what a dictatorship actually is-Saddam, Gaddafi, Pinochet etc & you will see the UK is nothing of the sort.
I am in the extremely highly vulnerable group, due to age and infirmity, and have been more or less self isolating since the end of March! I live in terror of someone passing on the virus, which will almost certainly kill me! I despise people like Mackinlay who couldn’t give a jot for the many millions of people like me, stuck at home day in day out, living in fear of the virus. Its a pandemic, that means its world wide, and the only thing that will stop it is to stop passing it onto each other until there is a suitable vaccine! Mackinlay, and the other mindless idiots like Trump, do not want to see businesses closed down (in Trumps case it was to try and save his Hotels and Golf Courses going bust!) because they have an ulterior motive, their investments!
No, we are not “in a dictatorship now”. We are far from being in one, whatever the current government would like to do. What does “the left mostly begging for the imprisonment of the national” mean?
When people “do their own research” many of them look at articles which confirm what they want to think. And a lot of stuff on the internet is by people who know very little about science.
Maybe the Democrat could take a trip to Syria or North Korea & see if he still thinks the UK is a dictatorship & how much democracy is allowed in such places.
Mackinlay is out of step with the majority of his constituents on nearly every important issue. Thanet now has one of the highest Covid infection rates in Kent and it is still rising so further restrictions are needed or our hospitals will be overrun with cases in a matter of weeks.
As others have said he was originally elected to keep Farage out of South Thanet but he needs to go. He does not permanently live in the constituency and spends little time here and prefers to reside elsewhere in Kent closer to his accountancy practice. The next general election cannot come soon enough so we can vote him out and get an MP who wants to work for his constituents interests rather than just big business and his friends.
Well said ThanetBusinessman! Also, don’t forget Mackinlay is in favour of the reopening of Manston airport, which if it happens will make the lives of most people in Thanet, especially those in the CT11 postal area, a complete misery! Low flying dirty old cargo planes flying in over Ramsgate Harbour at less than 300 meters high, two an hour or more, will destroy its tourist industry, devalue property, and create serious health problems with noise, and air pollution! It won’t affect Mackinlay or Gale though, they don’t live in Thanet! Our only hope is the Judicial Review to reinstate the Planning Inspectors decision to NOT reopen Manston, so go to the Crowd Funding for this, if you want to save Ramsgate/Thanet!
people are talking about this virus like they know what they are talking about, whereas most only know what they read about whether true or false, if all these people who throw these facts about really know what they are talking about why are they not scientists. the mp’s cant win what ever they say but are the first place people run to when they have a problem. and i don’t agree with the statement from ‘dumpton’ that all of the residents in ct11 area are against the airport re-opening, when did they question every resident, (i must have been out )i think this is a statement from an anti airport resident who doesn’t need or want a job. yes we need as many busnesses to survive but we also need people to survive so that those busnesses have customers in the future.health and safety has to come before money, doesn’t it?
Did Dumpton say that all CT11 residents are against the airport? I can’t see that statement.
I,like Dumpton,am against having an airport at Manston. I think we should have clean industries both at Ramsgate port and at the former airport site. Health and safety certainly should come before money.