Both leading political parties in the UK are facing backlash over their Covid ID policies.
Despite criticising Conservatives’ proposals for vaccine passports, the Labour Party will go ahead with mandatory Covid Passes for its Brighton conference later in September.
In a Covid-19 update to the House of Commons on Tuesday, Health Secretary Sajid Javid dismissed the idea of vaccine passports citing a lack of evidence for them. While he was speaking the Government’s winter Covid plan was released, detailing a contingency plan in the event of the NHS becoming overwhelmed with vaccine passports back on the table.
Silkie Carlo, director of the civil liberties group Big Brother Watch, said the government was keeping firms in “treacherous limbo” by not ruling vaccine passports entirely, and also called for more certainty.
She told PoliticsHome: “It is the right decision to scrap plans for discriminatory and invasive vaccine passports, and a very welcome one after our tireless campaign. They’d make no one safer, but leave us with a two-tier, checkpoint society.
“We’re extremely concerned that vaccine passports may still go ahead in Scotland and urge Nicola Sturgeon, and the Scottish Greens propping up the plans, to urgently halt their plans.”