Since his election, Starmer has been repeating that Labour have abandoned opposition for opposition’s sake, and will work constructively with the Government throughout the Coronavirus crisis. Last night he sent a letter to Dominic Raab calling on the Government to publish its exit strategy this week, saying “to maintain morale and hope, people need a sense of what comes next. The silent pressures on communities across the country cannot be underestimated.” No. 10 hit back, saying “Talk of an exit strategy before we have reached the peak risks confusing the critical message”…
Starmer has written to Raab to say: “We agree the measures need to remain in place, but to maintain morale and hope, people need a sense of what comes next. The silent pressures on communities across the country cannot be underestimated.” Quite reasonably he’s urging the First Secretary to commit to:
The Tories are spinning that openly debating an exit strategy before the peak of the virus has hit would “be a mistake… We do not think we know for certain that the peak will be at the end of this week, and I think until we are confident we are there, it would be too early to start calling the point where we can move to the next phase of this epidemic.”. Starmer says he ‘doesn’t accept this’, Guido tends to agree, infantalising the public as too stupid to follow a debate about the exit strategy is bad politics, it is arrogant as well. The public need to understand the logic of lockdown ending, a reasonable debate with a reasonable opposition would be a good start. Of course if the government doesn’t have an exit strategy…
Read Starmer’s letter to Raab in full below:
