It's not often that we at BTLP agree with Dave Lammy, but he appeared to give a very noble and articulate response to the tyrannical notion of domestic vaccine passports over the Easter weekend. Click below for the video (and note his consistent ability to somehow get race into the mix!)
He raises a lot of good points there, many of which have already been raised countless times by others, not least on these very pages for several months now. Unfortunately for Lammy, his opposition to the plan is riddled with hypocrisy. As Andrew Pierce pointed out in his Daily Mail column on Monday - when Tony Blair wanted to introduce compulsory ID cards to the UK, Lammy voted in favour of them no less than twelve times. Many of the ethical and libertarian arguments against ID cards were similar to what we are hearing now in respect of vaccine passports.
It's also worth noting that the Blair and Brown regimes - both of which Lammy served in as a minister - were Hell-bent on social control. The absurd Licensing Act of 2003 and the smoking ban of 2007 were just two examples, but let's not forget that biometric passports were also introduced under New Labour and it was Blair who proposed black box recorders for every private road vehicle under the guise of a tax-per-mile system. Therefore it's a bit rich for Dave Lammy to suddenly present himself as a self-styled defender of civil liberties.
Furthermore, let's also remember a much more recent act that Lammy carried out - one which directly contributes to the implementation of vaccine passports. When it came to the extension of the Coronavirus Act on March 25, Lammy voted in favour (like most of his Labour colleagues). In doing so he voted in favour of retaining emergency powers that provide the government with the ability to implement legislation that bypasses Parliament - including domestic vaccine passports.
Well done Lammy. You're on your high horse now, but less than two weeks ago you enabled the course of action that will result in the very thing you are now complaining about!
