Hospitality industry leaders have indicated that they are prepared to pursue legal action against the Government over the introduction of vaccine passports at nightclubs and other large venues, telling the Health Secretary in a letter that the plans are “highly likely to be unlawful”. The Sunday Telegraph has the story.
The new rules, announced by Boris Johnson on Monday, are due to come into effect from September when all over-18s have been offered two Covid vaccines.
From this point, the Prime Minister said, “proof of a negative test” will “no longer be enough” to secure entry.
A group of industry tycoons has written to Health Secretary Sajid Javid, warning him that introducing vaccine passports without “a proper and adequate consultation process” is “highly likely to be unlawful”.
They argue the plans could have “a discriminatory effect on grounds of race”, and risk encouraging illegal raves that lack safety arrangements.
The letter was written by Hugh Osmond, Founder of Punch Taverns and Director of Various Eateries, and signed by Michael Kill, Peter Marks and Stephen Thomas, who head the Night Time Industries Association, REKOM U.K. and The Jam House, respectively.
REKOM UK runs 42 bars and nightclubs across Britain, while The Jam House is a popular music venue in Birmingham. …
The letter argues that the Government must initiate “a proper and adequate consultation process” with those “involved in the running of the night-time economy”.
It warns that otherwise “any decision to introduce new rules would be highly likely to be unlawful”.
It says: “Mandatory vaccine certification as a condition of entry to any venue will impact disproportionately on younger people, who are less likely to be vaccinated than those in older age groups.
“That impact is further exacerbated when the only venues currently suggested to be affected are nightclubs, whose customers are already likely to be primarily younger adults.
“It is also well known that levels of vaccination are lower in some ethnic groups than others, and there is therefore likely to be a discriminatory effect on grounds of race as well.” …
Mr Osmond accused the Government of “arbitrary” decision making and called for decisions to be based on “evidence not prejudice”.
He said: “Mandatory Covid Status Certification would strike at the heart of our liberal democracy, create a two tier society, discriminate against society’s already most marginalised groups and disproportionately affect young people who enjoy and work in this industry – who have already suffered intolerable burdens on behalf of society over the last eighteen months.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Plans to introduce vaccine passport checks aren’t just potentially unlawful but illogical, says Hugh Osmond. He points out that, under these plans: “If you are fully vaccinated but still have Covid, you can go to a nightclub. But if you test negative but are not vaccinated, you can’t.”
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So, nightclub owners are willing to go to court over this.
Come on Welby, take the Government to court about ‘Vaccine Passports’ for churches.
Then watch the churches fill up.
Some hope. I’ve just caught part of ‘Choral Evensong’ whilst changing channels, and some Creeping Jesus was offering prayers for ‘our government’ (whose?) for ‘our nation’s leaders (who?) and ‘those fighting Corona virus’ (and who would that be? – I just see those making it far worse than it is).
Please remember that we are supposed to pray for our enemies. I always remember William Tyndale’s prayer ‘Lord open the eyes of the King of England’.
I don’t find this easy.
But I can imagine what is behind your statement. I attended, earlier in the year, a ‘prayer day’ at our church for the ‘pandemic and brexit’. It was every bit as bad as I expected, so I read out Freddie Attenborough’s post ‘For the Fallen’. I am glad to say that it brought them almost to tears.
I then wrote to our rector describing what had happened, in fairly direct terms. I got a reply that absolutely knocked me out. There was not a hint of criticism in his email reply (I read it VERY thoroughly) and he revealed to me (and I do not think he has told anyone else in the church) that one of his children attempted suicide twice in the most recent lockdown. That rather coloured his views.
These accursed, evil and satanic lockdowns are the occasion of much misery and devastation.
and of course you are right – Christians should pray for their enemies – and give thanks for trials, which can be an opportunity to grow in virtue. Crisis equals opportunity.
when are they going to offer prayers for victims of government lockdowns and restrictions ( including vaccine victims)?
I was a churchgoer until Covid. Woke Welby is the worst AofC we have ever had and that is really saying something. He and the Church of England clerics have let both God and parishioners down badly during this last 16 months with their zoom rubbish services. Many churches are still not opening up, the interiors strangely silent and empty
The worst thing I saw was a banner on a couple of closed churches – I suspect it may be a nationally available sign from the CofE, which read: ‘We are here for you – join us online’.
Like most of our national institutions, the CofE is utterly rotten – the past year has shown that these official moral guardians (England is one of the few countries to have an established state church) have little interest in criticising immoral behaviour by the government.
Not that this came as any surprise – I was already very well aware of just what an odious organisation it is – the only things it really objects are those which go against its own interests.
Maybe one of a mosque or a synagogue or any number of other places of worship could be a leader in this?
Aye, maybe – but the CofE is best placed simply because it is the national church and is integrated with the government (26 bishops in the House of Lords). Also, it is hierarchical and centralised, so has a single leadership which could speak out (but doesn’t, of course)
Anyone could – but they are all ‘following orders’, ‘following customs’, or ‘following cowardice’.
I’m not a ‘believer’ – rather a ‘strong’ agnostic : one who believes that even the concept of ‘knowing’ the unknown is somewhat ridiculous, and for whom atheism is far too religious.
But I do take an interest in what is going on, and recognize that religion is part of what has shaped society.
In that context, I wondered why Welby was appointed as top dog.
It’s now obvious : he is totally an establishment stooge with nothing to offer but compliance and trite blathering. I don’t think that was true of his predecessor.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man
(Captain George Mainwaring)
I seem to remember a rather disparaging Guardian cartoon after he was elected Archbishop saying “bums on pews, we don’t marry poofs”. Whether that is at all relevant, I’m not entirely sure at this time of night…
All of the temporal and spiritual bodies that might have been expected to provide some resistance – churches, mosques, trade unions, campaigning organisations, social institutions – have either gone all out in support of the tyranny, or just melted away.
But not our anti-lockdown church, though we have been forced to keep a bit of a low profile
Oh do be reasonable: do you not realise that the ABC wants to give his distant successor an opportunity to make a grovelling apology in 800 years?!
I’m an atheist, but I’d attend a church which went actively to war against vaccine pasports. We got magna carta when the church and government went to war (king John pissed off the pope, england excommunicated, barons get angry, force John into magna carta signing), we could use magna carta being brought to the fore again.
I can well imagine Her Majesty’s judges deciding that the scheme is not ‘irrational’ or ‘Wednesbury unreasonable’ as such a challenge would be based on the false premise that the scheme is for the ostensible purpose, when it is in fact just a pilot for internal passports in the style of the Soviet Union.
ah yes, and they can withhold suicide statistics as well can’t they, like the DDR
About effin time that businesses and their leaders grow a spine, instead of collaborating with and kowtowing to the fascists.
You cannot defeat a totalitarian regime in the courts. Let’s hope they pull it off, but I fear it will just confirm that we are indeed in a totalitarian regime.
I hate to agree, but fear that you are quite correct.
I’m glad they are fithing it in the courts, but I think to win they need to start moving beyond the courts, or at least publically making plans to move beyond the courts. If businness do threaten, openly, to take exo-legal action then the government might start to think twice.
Exactly and it could well be an “I’m Spartacus” moment.
Yep it’s all rigged we saw that with Simon Dolan.
I think the lack of scientific logic should be enough to stop the idea in its tracks personally. Even if giving someone a cold were something society should be geared up to stop (which it is not).
Logic has been ostracised by this government
LO-feckin-L!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E7EdsB-WUAEvvMW?format=jpg
We’ll likely end up with the European system- double jab or negative test
Wonder whether they will add a booster requirement for the jabbed
They need to sell jabs and tests
It’s quite likely to end up with the usual false choice which we’ve been presented with repeatedly over the past year – Do you want this shit restriction or that fractionally less shit restriction. They know that people will choose the slighly less shit option, when the answer should really be ‘neither’.
Spain is already talking about booster jabs https://dailysceptic.org/forums/medicine/spain-now-looking-at-3rd-booster-dose/
If only all business sectors had organised and done this sooner we might have been out of this sooner! Like others I have reservations about our legal system fulfilling it’s role however.
which is exactly why the
governmentregime is proposing them.should be an interesting court case, not least because the jab is experimental and only authorised for emergency use
It’s all a bit late in the day. But if tested judicially, would be a real litmus test for the judicial system and the definition of ‘reasonableness’, since so much has absolutely no reasonable basis, if one looks at scientific rationality.
As I already wrote in the past: Either the goverment thinks that people must get vaccinated. Then, it has to make vaccination mandatory as it must do whatever it can to ensure that people actually get vaccinated for public safety. Or the government does not believe that – tacitly admitted by the fact that vaccination is only supposed to be mandatory for people visiting a certain kind of venues – than, it must not exert pressure on certain minority groups in order to force them to get vaccinated.
“We don’t call it mandatory because this would openly contradict some law we’re supposed to uphold, and this way, we can get away with violating it nevertheless — aren’t we clever and cunning?” should be sufficient to get this thrown out on its own and preferably, the people who come up with such schemes at the same time.
If rule of law is supposed to mean something, the government must not openly act against it while publically pretending this wasn’t the case and expert advisers suggesting such a cause of action ought to face trial for it. Collateral killings of members of targetted groups, no matter how small the number, are not an acceptable part of a public health policy. That’s something which happens to people who accidentally find themselve caught in a war.
The passport doubles-down on several successive lies which are now held to be beyond question (the nature, course, and lethality of Covid, the efficacy of lockdowns, masks, vaccines, to name but a few). Its defeat would change nothing on the strategic level. The sheer inertia of the government and simultaneous rapidity of events means we have no traction: our points are not landing. We are right, but it’s not working.
We need to organise a UK Freedom Council with urgency, draw up Articles, encourage the government to consult with us, yet prepare for the worst.
I attended the London Freedom Rally at Trafalgar Square yesterday, and was impressed by several speakers.
I suggest that the likes of David Kerten, Laurence Fox, and others, need to start doing something more concrete now. You, I believe, would have our full support.
I would model any UK Freedom Council on the Polish Solidarity movement, which toppled Communism.
This movement, which could be called ‘Solidarity’ or ‘UK Freedom Council’ should coopt the most prominent current leaders, combine current resistance websites and knowledge, and be democratic. Its programme might include:
1. Campaigning for an end to Vaccine Passports, which threaten apartheid and unjust discrimination
2. Upholding the universal human rights, such as a right to refuse any vaccine and masks
3. Pushing for investigation into the origins and course of Covid
4. Pushing for investigation into the government’s handling of Covid
5. Calling for accountability and prosecutions for any public authority figure found to have lied, gained financially, and otherwise manipulated the public
6. Formulating Articles of Freedom and an Agenda to dialogue with the State in each country
7. Forming “Social and Athletic Societies” to safeguard the “hardiness and resilience” of the free people.
8. Campaign for an end to all emergency legislation measures, which bring hysteria and insanity
9. Ending all lockdowns now and in perpetuity, as they bring bankruptcy, unfreedom, and psychological torment
10. Uncovering and countering media and government propaganda, disinformation, and cover-ups, which numb the minds of free citizens
11. Seeking guarantees on freedom of expression, belief, and the right to dissent
12. Opposing state, media, and multinationals’ overreach
13. A return to mandatory consultation with the public over issues that concern us: participative democracy and the reform of corrupt parliaments and the distorted public sphere
14. Ending disproportionality of coverage of selected social causes and agendas
A New Solidarity should be international, democratic, well-led, and organised. We will only win this fight if we allow truth to do the talking and conduct ourselves with responsibility and justice.
We will win!
great idea – the problem with calling it ‘freedom’ is that most already think we are free and would like upstarts like us to be stopped from harming their illusion of safety – people just cant see where these dystopian things can end up
The name is negotiable. Of course initially some people would continue with their narrative. But if this situation is really leading to tyranny, we all need to have an organised resistance. It would be up to the leaders to go on mainstream media as things unfold (assuming it’s possible). It’s a do-able concept, and if they’re reading this now, they have no excuse not to try.
“most already think we are free”
Good observation. Orwell was prescient when he gave us the slogan Freedom is slavery. Now I understand what he was getting at.
What do you propose to do with those who are successfully prosecuted?
I think everyone would like justice to be done (assuming crimes have been committed), but I’m not calling for revenge or mob-rule. Those competent in legal matters would have to decide.
So empty words from you then.
Can we put them in the stocks? The public would pay good money to pelt them with rotten fruit & veg as a way of replenishing the coffers & the absolute humiliation would serve to remind our elected representatives to whom they serve.
The public are slavering to obey!
I’d prefer to see them hanged.
Me too.
“Solidarity” would be a useful name, especially as it invokes memories of what happened in Poland, and maybe a bit of subtext “the anti apartheid organisation” could also be useful in the same fashion.
The word solidarity has long been associated with communism unfortunately
I was also at Trafalgar Square on Saturday but couldn’t hear anything other than the odd word or phrase. It felt like an echo chamber anyway, preaching to the already converted. Cries of ‘freedom’ resounded around the square while ordinary masked-up shoppers and tourists, you know, the actual people that movements need to attract in order to reach a tipping point, exercised their own ‘freedom’ to shop and sit in restaurants and cafes. I would suggest that the organisers try and attract some names that appeal to Middle England – sympathetic scientists, doctors, nurses, lawyers, MPS from main political parties – and not so much the fringe element of borderline racists and political opportunists that seem to attach themselves to movements like this. A ‘name’ opposing lockdown etc is not enough, I want to now they have integrity and are not politically motivated. Blink and the freedom movement becomes co-opted by others. Above all, it needs integrity and complete transparency. I’m too old to listen to some bright-eyed type with the gift of the gab giving me lectures on ‘freedom’.
I agree that a name is not enough. Poland’s Solidarity was a broad-based trade union movement combining people across the political spectrum as well as the religious and non-religious. It had 10 million members at its peak. Our ‘movement’ is not a trade union, but it does need a programme, leadership, and a plan. I would not presume to say that this task would be easy or have overnight success, nor to assume that we can successfully vet members for ideological purity in the modern world. If done well, though, I think we have a chance. But we need to be self-critical and self-disciplined as well as spontaneous, and make avoid making assumptions or pillorying our ‘opponents’. An ‘anarchist revolution’ will not do, and neither would a ‘single issue middle class’ movement. Ultimately, its up to those who want to step up and lead to ensure the sanity and success of our cause.
Excellent post. I too was at the Freedom rally in Trafalgar Square, a lot of the public’s behaviour was disappointing but this does point out a way forward.
UK Freedom Council has the right sound, and we certainly need some moral rearmament. Come on Laurence, step up there, we’ll all be behind you.
That is true no matter where in the world one lives but they are unfortunately creeping in.
Visitors to Bulgaria can only go there with a negative PCR, even if you have been fully vaccinated.
Meanwhile in Germany it is proposed that under new regulations people who have been vaccinated will certainly have more freedom than those who have not been vaccinated,” Helge Braunis reportedly said in an interview with newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
This could mean that certain leisure activities such as restaurant, cinema and stadium visits are no longer possible, even for those who have been tested negative because the risk is too high.
Seems the ‘very old normal‘ will be the ‘new normal’ soon.
Re use of old signage. Much cheaper than getting fresh new signage made up.
There are loads of these available for import from the old SA, though the may now be re designating their old ones for themselves. You need to act fast or you could miss the opportunity.
Being illogical hasn’t stopped some if the other crap, like isolating people who aren’t so that they don’t make other people not ill. Or making people wear face rags when they know full well they don’t work.
Nevertheless, the more this nasty government is challenged the better.
Let’s not forget in the UK the nightclub / passport scam is discriminatory on the basis of disability (conditions or medications incompatible with the jabs) and sex where women are or intend to become pregnant… ok they might not make up the majority of clubbers but let’s add everything possible onto the list.
So how does one start the prosecution of Boris and co for their coercion of the uk population to take their experimental medical procedure. They are now threatening our young persons with no higher education if they do not submit to the gene treatment , Lord Sumption
Someone showed me this picture of a sign outside the Royal Oak in Summerlays Place, Bath, this morning which speaks for itself.
Landlords and owners like these need our support and encouragement. If you’re scared to go into this type of freedom loving venue, feel free to stay at home behind the sofa or find a nice sterile soulless hidey hole of your own.
This is a proper old fashioned English pub. Very much under serious threat of extinction. Very important they be protected and encouraged to thrive.
How refreshing to see
Love it! ‘Stay still and scream for help‘ – sort of sums up numptymania. I also observed people in a pub at the weekend getting up from their table, all putting on their masks to walk the 20 feet to the door. It’s this sort of irrational behaviour from otherwise seemingly normal and intelligent people that plays into the hands of those that would like to see us forever masked and distanced from each other like that totally insane advice from the NSW health chief in Oz – ‘this is not the time to be friendly‘!!
How lovely, I wish them every success.
There is no compulsion for any business cultural transport or religious entity to slavishly follow the government recommendations on restrictions as it is now just guidance. So why are most doing it? Because they fear that if they don’t, legal compulsion will follow. The government has even said as much. However, appeasement rarely works. As what happens is the bullying aggressor takes advantage. So legal compulsion which is what you are trying to avoid will surely follow as your weakness is there for all to see. Well I say bring it on, disobey the guidance en masse. And see what happens.