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Coronavirus

01st Apr 2021

Keir Starmer says Brits won’t want vaccine passports if deaths are low

Claudia McInerney

“The British instinct” would oppose vaccine passports if death rates are low, says Starmer

The Leader of the Labour Party Sir Keir Starmer said that Brits would be against the idea of Covid-19 vaccine passports if death rates and infection rates are extremely low.

Vaccine passports are being considered by the government as a way of enabling people to gain entry into certain public venues, including pubs and restaurants.

The Labour Opposition Keir Starmer told the Daily Telegraph: “My instinct is that, as the vaccine is rolled out, as the number of hospital admissions and deaths go down, there will be a British sense that we don’t actually want to go down this road.”

He said that there was no “clear black and white, yes-no easy answer on this,” before adding that vaccine passports would potentially go against “British instinct.”

Starmer said: “My instinct is that… [if] we get the virus properly under control, the death rates are near zero, hospital admissions very, very low, that the British instinct in those circumstances will be against vaccine passports.

“I think that this idea that we sort of outsource this to individual landlords is just wrong in principle.”

Speaking of the new plans in a liaison committee in March, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “I think that’s the kind of thing that may be up to individual publicans.”

However, the PM stressed in an interview with Sky News that “no decisions have been taken at all” and no potential plans will come into place before 12 April, the date pub gardens are able to open.