Jamie Bryson: Latest NI lockdown will subject free people to house imprisonment

If we follow that through, then plainly the prudent exercise for the Executive would have been to use that time to enhance the capacity of the NHS, in order to ensure that future lockdowns can be avoided.

I therefore must question what steps have been taken over the past eight months to enhance the capacity of the NHS?

The fact that we are now heading for what in some respects is an even harsher lockdown than at anytime previous suggests that strategy has failed.

We are told, and it isn’t yet clear as to whether this is guidance or law, that there will be an effective 8pm curfew. Stop and think on that for a moment; a free people living in a democratic society are being effectively subjected to population-wide house imprisonment. This is more egregious given that the vast majority of those subjected to these draconian measures are at effectively no serious health risk from the virus whatsoever.

How is it proposed a curfew would be enforced? Given the PSNI’s already sketchy record in terms of Covid policing, many will be forgiven for wondering what chaos awaits over the next six weeks. In recent times we have seen how the PSNI closed car washes, costing these businesses vital trade and leaving employees with no wages in the run up to Christmas. Then a week later the PSNI accepted that, in fact, they maybe shouldn’t have actually closed car washes. Scant consolation for those who have lost their Christmas money because of this apparent error.

Giving evidence to the House of Commons in early December former Supreme Court justices Lord Sumption and Lady Hale both expressed concerns as to whether the Public Health Act really conferred the power to make such sweeping regulations to impinge upon the freedom and liberty of healthy persons. In Northern Ireland we have regulations made by diktat (statutory instrument) and only retrospectively subjected to democratic Assembly scrutiny. Only two weeks ago we had the absurd situation whereby the Assembly debated whether to approve or reject regulations which had already expired.

The concerns over not only the legitimacy, but crucially the lawfulness of the imposition of lockdown is not some extremist fringe position, it is a widely held viewpoint.

Often the media make the mistake of confusing the Twitter bubble with the real world. The Twiterrati, an online mob who attain social status by indicating their support for the latest hyper-liberal fad, are champions of lockdown. The same people will be the ones who were engaging in FBI-like surveillance of their neighbours and telephoning the PSNI Covid report line.

Lockdown has no real impact on such persons. With their mostly secure salaries, they can happily spend their days in their spacious homes, whipping up frothy lattes and eating a fresh Avocado as an occasional snack. They can avail of their large spare ‘exercise’ room for Yoga and Pilates, with a welcome break in-between to phone into BBC Talk Back to discuss the pressing issues of the day.

The Executive’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic has already demolished many jobs and likely resulted in untold mental health damage. For a single parent with children, perhaps Santa will not come this year; perhaps there is no Christmas tree lights because there is barely enough money to keep the electric on. Furthermore, due to the latest restrictions, such persons have a binary choice between being locked in a small flat, or bringing the children out into the freezing cold to ‘exercise’. That is the sum of life for many people over the next six weeks.

It is a similar story for those persons who live alone and likely have no garden, no exercise equipment and who are elderly and cannot simply go for a jog - in freezing wind and rain - around a local park. Such persons rely on access to the gym not only for exercise facilities for their physical and mental health, but also for simple companionship. And yet it is felt prudent to bolt the doors of local gyms closed; indeed, exercising in a gym would amount to a criminal offence. Let us stop and consider a salient point; even in Guantanamo Bay, prisoners are not denied access to gym facilities.

Notwithstanding the above, the Executive have set us on this course. It is their responsibility to remedy the harm - regardless of whether it is inflicted for the so called subjectively defined ‘greater good’ or otherwise - caused by their policy. It is simple to trot out fancy catchphrases such as ‘we are all in this together’. That sounds superficially attractive, but it is in fact wholly false. We are not all in it together, many will suffer far more than others and bear a disproportionate burden. The resentment and impact flowing from that will be felt for years, if not decades to come.

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