The anti-lockdowners made stirring speeches – but didn’t have the votes

MPs have voted overwhelmingly to extend the temporary powers of the Coronavirus Act. John Rentoul listened to the debate

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, faced opposition from his own side, not from Labour (Getty)

The House of Commons has rarely seen such a one-sided debate, ending in a vote that went so overwhelmingly the other way. After the opening speeches from Matt Hancock, the health secretary, and his opposite number, Jonathan Ashworth, arguing in favour of extending the coronavirus restrictions, nearly every MP rose to demand that they be eased more quickly.

Ashworth’s main complaint was that the powers didn’t go far enough. He sounded as if he thought the only danger was of lifting the lockdown too early: “Vaccination alone does not make us bullet-proof,” he said, and he warned fearfully against new variants. He boasted that Labour had helped to draft the legislation in the first place, pressing for sick pay for people who have to self-isolate and for the ban on evictions, and said: “We support the renewal of the act.”

Every other MP who spoke after him said that the temporary provisions go too far. A few said that they would reluctantly vote to renew them in any case. All the rest – Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat – laid into the powers and said they would vote against.

Charles Walker, the Conservative rebel, gave a sarcastic speech about protesting against the price of milk – either it was too high or it was too low, he didn’t know, but he was protesting about it by carrying a pint of milk with him at all times. This was a satirical reference to the government’s concession that public gatherings would be allowed under the coronavirus rules for the purposes of protest.

William Wragg, another Tory, was equally sarcastic in saying he wanted to talk about “such esoteric things” as fundamental rights and freedoms.

Read more:

• Why the Liberal Democrats won’t vote to renew the Coronavirus Act
• Mark Carney should call a moratorium on new fossil fuel investments – or resign as UN Climate Finance Envoy
• The Home Office is getting worse at managing the asylum system – and only has itself to blame

Graham Stringer, for Labour, said he would vote against, partly because “the risk of catching Covid-19 in the open air is minimal”, but mainly because “governments can get a taste for authoritarianism and for large powers. I don’t want them to get a taste for it; I don’t want this or any other government to think that we should give these powers to a government ever again.”

Thus he pre-empted the liberalism that had suddenly infected the Liberal Democrats, whose leader Ed Davey has rediscovered civil liberties. But once again Davey found himself outdone in rhetoric by the liberals to the right and the left of him. Sir Graham Brady, chair of the Tory 1922 Committee, seemed to summon the spirit of Gladstone, Grimond, Kennedy and Clegg far better than Davey did. “The habit of coercion and control has gone too far; it has gone on too long; it is time for this house to trust the British people and to return their rights to them,” declared Sir Graham.

He may be the representative of the Tory backbenchers, but on this issue the government enjoys the reluctant support of the silent majority. In the end, the Tory rebels could muster only 36 to defy the whip – 35 to vote against and one teller to count the votes – which is well down on the 55 who rebelled at the end of the November lockdown on 1 December. A further handful of Tory MPs abstained.

Apart from Graham Stringer and John Spellar, most of the 21 Labour MPs voting against the government were members of the Socialist Campaign Group (and their best-known former member – the independent MP for Islington North, Jeremy Corbyn – also voted against).

I thought Boris Johnson and Hancock would try harder to win over the anti-lockdown faction of Tory MPs, but they have obviously decided that with public opinion, the scientists, and the Labour Party leadership on their side, they can afford to lift the restrictions at the cautious pace they have set out in the roadmap.

I still think that, if the figures for infections, hospitalisations and deaths continue to improve, public opinion will shift and a faster pace will be possible. But it won’t come about because of fine speeches in the House of Commons about fundamental rights and liberties.