{"id":2260,"date":"2021-07-20T08:54:18","date_gmt":"2021-07-20T07:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/?p=2260"},"modified":"2021-07-20T08:56:19","modified_gmt":"2021-07-20T07:56:19","slug":"freedom-day-detached-from-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/freedom-day-detached-from-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cFreedom day\u201d \u2014 detached from reality and spiked with racism (just like Brexit)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\u201cFreedom day\u201d night clubbing<\/figcaption><\/figure>19 July 2021 \u2014 trumpeted as \u201cfreedom day\u201d \u2014 with Covid regulations coming to an end, saw infections rising and 39,950 new cases. The daily number of new cases<\/a> hasn\u2019t been that high since the emergency tightening of rules at Christmas (where the surge peaked at 68,053 on 8 January). That\u2019s not a good sign. Vaccinations have helped bring numbers down, but the increased infectiousness of the delta variant is pulling the other way. No vaccine is 100% effective, and it\u2019s right to be concerned about parts of society where people are chosing not to be vaccinated.<\/p>\n

Denying the seriousness<\/h2>\n

In the Daily Mail<\/a> of 17 July, Graham Brady argued that relaxing the rules is about freedom. He likens the people\u2019s reservations about the change to \u201cStockholm syndrome\u201d \u2014 where captives identify with their captors. Choice extracts from the article include:<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAfter 16 months of being told by the state when we could leave our homes, whether we could see our families, with whom we were allowed to have sex, or what kinds of sports we were permitted to play, many of us are eager to regain the human dignity that comes with the exercise of our own free will.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\nand <\/p>\n

\n\u201cHow far a proud nation has allowed itself to fall!<\/p>\n

So, as we approach tomorrow\u2019s partial lifting of restrictions, some of us eagerly anticipate being allowed to have a family meal again in our own homes and will do so.<\/p>\n

Yet others are anxious and are asking for restrictions to go on for just a little bit longer.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The idea that this is about \u201chow far a proud nation has allowed itself to fall\u201d leaps off the page. It\u2019s strikingly reminiscent of the jingoistic support for Brexit. And, as with Brexit, it ignores the fact that the UK is facing the same problems as the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

Learning to live with Covid is not at all the same thing as pretending it has gone away. It will continue to be a problem until the vast majority of the world\u2019s population have been vaccinated. Political will doesn\u2019t change that. But I do suspect that there is a wealth issue: people who are more wealthy tend to live with more space and don\u2019t face the same infection risks as people crowded together in substandard accommodation. Brady\u2019s article reads like a claim that he wants his freedom and is not bothered about the consequences for others:<\/p>\n

\n\u201cMany politicians and advisers will admit privately that the policy change compelling people to wear masks was not really about the spread of infection at all but about the psychological effect that they would have.<\/p>\n

That real purpose is social control \u2013 to provide a constant reminder to maintain distance from other people.<\/p>\n

To maintain a state of anxiety that leaves people more likely to comply with the restrictions that might otherwise be resisted or forgotten.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Boris Johnson (non) exception<\/h2>\n

This comes hard on the back of the news that Sajid Javid (having been fully vaccinated) had tested positive for Covid, and Boris Johnson seemed to say that he would ignore the instruction to self-isolate (as someone who had spend time with Javid). He changed direction rapidly<\/a>, but his words give a lingering sense that he sees himself as an exception. That\u2019s not exactly modelling a responsible approach. It comes on the back of stories of Johnson saying \u201clet the bodies pile high\u201d<\/a> in the autumn of 2020.<\/p>\n

The Covid Recovery Group<\/h2>\n

Among Conservative MPs the \u201cEuropean Research Group\u201d has done considerable damage by arguing for Brexit in defiance of reality. As the grizzly reality of Brexit emerges it is becoming increasingly clear that their reading of Brexit and of the EU is far detached from reality.<\/p>\n

Modelled on the \u201cEuropean Research Group\u201d, the \u201cCovid Recovery Group\u201d is another collection of Conservative MPs arguing against lockdown as a response to Covid. The sense seems to be to prioritise the economy and liberty and ignore the consequences. Graham Brady\u2019s article doesn\u2019t mention his membership of the Covid Recovery Group, but his belittling of the concerns of people wary of relaxing the rules fits with the ERG approach, and flies in the face of medical and scientific advice<\/a> (is this another case of \u201cpeople have had enough of experts\u201d?)<\/p>\n

Anti-vaxxers<\/h2>\n

One of the big problems with the language of \u201cfreedom day\u201d is that it licenses those who are reluctant to be vaccinated, often on grounds of spurious claims about risk or liberty.<\/p>\n

The highest profile claims over vaccine safety have been around the risk of blood clots after taking the Astrazenica vaccine. When the European Medicines Agency reported, they had investigated 25 cases, out of 20 million people, and concluded that incidence of blood clots \u201cwas lower than that expected in the general population\u201d.<\/p>\n

Doctors are writing of \u201cunvaccinated patients with many regrets\u201d<\/a>. The problem here is that it is not just the anti-vaxxers who suffer \u2014 it\u2019s also the people who are having to wait longer for their hip replacements because of Covid patients needing hospital treatment.<\/p>\n

The racist angle<\/h2>\n

Where this gets horribly complex is where it intersects with race. By the summer of 2020 it had become clear that members of some of the Black and Minority Ethnic communities were being disproportionately affected by Covid<\/a>. <\/p>\n

To people used to being on the receiving end of racism, this landed badly. I\u2019ve heard anxieties around that expressed in a range of ways from with in the BAME communities, but the net effect has been a reluctance to get vaccinated<\/a> — I fear that is because this is associated with pressure from a (white) government. Relaxing the rules now risks Covid landing particularly heavily on these BAME communities. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s a range of possible explanations for Covid having a disproportionately serious effect on some BAME communities last year, which don\u2019t point directly to racism (or the virus being racist). But the tragedy is that the experience of having been on the receiving end of racism means this has been processed in a way that will now leave these communities suffering in the fallout of \u201cfreedom day\u201d. That\u2019s bad in itself, and stores up problems around race relations for the future.<\/p>\n

A rash decision<\/h2>\n

A piece in The Guardian<\/em><\/a> on 10 July said \u201cTwo Whitehall sources told the Guardian that ministers had been spooked by internal polling. One said the data showed just 10% of the public support the policy of scrapping all restrictions at once, while another said substantially more people believed the government was moving too quickly than at the last reopening step on 17 May.\u201d<\/p>\n

The implication is that the Government is pushing ahead despite widespread reservations. On the parallel with Brexit, I am struck that a poll at the end of 2020 said that just 17% of Britons supported Johnson\u2019s Brexit deal<\/a>. The sense with both is of a government pushing ahead on a frolic of its own with scant regard for the needs of the country. Hardly a model of wise leadership.<\/p>\n

A serious postscript\u2026<\/h2>\n

The sentiments of anti-vaxxers, and those who treat masks as an affront to their liberties, only make sense if people fail to recognise the seriousness of Covid19. That\u2019s on the same page as the people claiming Covid19 is a hoax, or a \u201cplandemic\u201d. <\/p>\n

A psychoanalytic lens on this might suggest that a very natural response to something deeply scary is to deny it. That\u2019s to see Covid19 as a hoax because admitting its reality would be too scary (there\u2019s a parallel with those who deny climate change rather than face it). A second natural response is to get into a fight \u2014 in this case between Covid-sceptics and those genuinely concerned by the realities of Covid. <\/p>\n

A government achieving a measure of mature dependency would have enabled people to see that there is a problem, and that it can be faced \u2014 by vaccination and exceptional economic measures. What we seem to have instead is a government leading the flight away from reality \u2014 both on Covid and on Brexit. That\u2019s serious. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The relaxing of Covid rules, at a time when infection rates are rising, is a rash triumph of political will over reality, which will land badly, particularly for some minority groups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[72,278,316],"tags":[317,21,318,319],"class_list":["post-2260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brexit-politics","category-covid-19","category-racism","tag-freedom-day","tag-brexit","tag-covid19","tag-racism"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2260"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2273,"href":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2260\/revisions\/2273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}