There’s a risk England will not come out of restrictions on 19 July, warns Harper

Tory MP Mark Harper who is the chairman of the Covid Recovery Group (CRG) has expressed serious concerns that England will not “actually move forward on 19 July.”

However Michael Gove said on Tuesday that something “unprecedented and remarkable” would have to happen for the 19 July “terminus date” not to go ahead.

Harper said that England could have “moved ahead perfectly” on 21 July, but scientists have said by in delaying the “Freedom Day” hundreds of deaths have been prevented.

Harper told LBC Radio, “Some of us, I’m afraid, are a bit worried that we’re not going to actually move forward on the 19 July.”

The CRG chairman added, “I listened carefully to what the Prime Minister said yesterday and I was in the House of Commons for the Health Secretary’s statement, and it seemed to me we don’t know anything today that we didn’t know when the Prime Minister was telling us he was happy to move ahead on the 21 June.

“Ultimately we’ve reduced the risk of this disease hugely by our fantastic vaccination programme, and, as the government says, we’ve got to learn to live with it, but the problem is every time we get to that point, Ministers seem to not actually want to live with it and keep restrictions in place.”

Some senior Ministers are also worried that these measures could last until spring next year and told the Telegraph that summer will provide a very short window to open up the country.

If this is missed then England could be facing a semi-lockdown until spring 2021.

One unnamed senior Minister told the newspaper, “I am very worried the people who want to keep us shut down now want us to keep us shut down permanently and are aiming for ‘zero Covid’.”

Senior Tories, including “several ministers” believe there will be even more calls by mid July to keep the final stage of easing in place by scientists as there will be more cases.

A senior Conservative MP told the Telegraph, “I just don’t buy that in four weeks time it will somehow look completely different and the scientists will say, it’’s fine, you crack on’.”