PM risks 'fracturing' Britain as coronavirus lockdown loosens, warns Manchester mayor Burnham

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham
PA Archive/PA Images
Kit Heren17 May 2020

Boris Johnson could cause a "fracturing of national unity" by lifting the UK's coronavirus lockdown early, with infection rates higher in some northern regions than in London and the south-east, Andy Burnham has warned.

The Labour mayor of Greater Manchester said that regional leaders were not warned in advance of the measures that Mr Johnson planned to announce in his speech easing restrictions on Sunday. Dropping the "Stay at Home" message felt premature, he added.

Writing in the Observer, Mr Burnham said: “On the eve of a new working week, the PM was on TV ‘actively encouraging’ a return to work. Even though that would clearly put more cars on roads and people on trams, no-one in Government thought it important to tell the cities that would have to cope with that.”

“The surprisingly permissive package might well be right for the South East, given the fall in cases there. But my gut feeling told me it was too soon for the North.

Andy Burnham has criticised the measures to ease the lockdown 
AFP/Getty Images

"Certainly, the abrupt dropping of the clear “stay at home” message felt premature.

“If the Government carries on in the same vein, expect to see an even greater fracturing of national unity. Different places will adopt their own messaging and policies.”

Mr Burnham asked the Government on Tuesday to publish the regional coronavirus infection rate - the R number - rather than just a national one, which is believed to be significantly higher now in the north than in London.

And he told BBC Breakfast on Sunday: “People do not have the R information at the moment. They can get it, but it’s not formally published by the Government.

“There’s a very different picture in the north, particularly in the north east, where the R is the highest, so I can understand concerns [about lifting lockdown measures].

“Let’s get back around the table, look at the evidence and have some flexibility in terms of how [children] return to school because it will be different for different places.”

His comments come after teachers unions hit out at Government plans for reopening schools, and the devolved Governments and some local councils have said they will not reopen schools at the start of June.

Meanwhile a new poll has shown that public support for the Government's handling of the coronavirus crisis may be dropping.

Only 39 per cent of Brits approve of the Government’s response – down from 48 per cent a week ago – according to an Opinium survey of 2,005 adults on Wednesday and Thursday.

The proportion of those saying they disapprove rose from 36 per cent to 42 per cent.

Mr Johnson has told Brits that their "fortitude" will help them weather the crisis.

British people's "desire to return to the freedoms they hold dear that has allowed us to inch forwards," Mr Johnson wrote in a piece for the Mail on Sunday.

Some lockdown measures have already been lifted 
Jeremy Selwyn

His comments come as the Government gave £93 million for a coronavirus vaccine manufacturing centre in Oxford.

If a vaccine is developed, the centre may be able to make enough doses for the entire British population in as little as six months, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said.

The no-for-profit centre will open in summer 2021.

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