26 July 2021 — Big Brother Watch

Dear friends,

You can’t have missed the news that the Government wants to make vaccine passes mandatory from September for large gatherings, without even the option of a test as an alternative. The front pages have been filled with Government threats confirming our worst fears – access to nightclubs, sports events, and even universities could be restricted to only those with COVID vaccine IDs.

It’s a U-turn of the harshest kind.

It’s dangerously coercive, counter-productive and wrong.

This cruel policy will exclude millions of people, especially pregnant and breastfeeding women, ethnic minorities, young people, people on lower incomes and migrants who are all disproportionately unvaccinated.

Support is better than coercion. No one should be forced to have a medical treatment they don’t want to have.

Studies show time and time again that vaccine compulsion doesn’t increase uptake or trust – it further alienates people. Whilst some will do anything to paint opposition to vaccine passes as ‘anti-vaccination’, it’s anything but. Good healthcare relies on nurture, support, privacy and autonomy – not coercion, exclusion, or fear of authority.

This Government’s whole pandemic strategy has rested on compulsion, policing, threats and criminalisation. And look where that got us.

Now, they’re threatening a future of yet more coercion, checkpoints, segregation and exclusion.

We have to say NO – no to vaccine IDs, no to division, no to discrimination.

If businesses are safe to open, they must be safe to open to all.

Together, we will defeat vaccine IDs – this is how we’re going to do it.

1) Do. Not. Comply.

These three words are going to be important in the weeks and months to come…

We’ve got to vote with our feet. Some businesses have opened today using COVID passes. We now know that within weeks, these could be vaccination-only passes. If you oppose COVID passes, boycott businesses using them and let us know who they are so we can write to them.

As parliamentary committees have said, there is absolutely no health case to use them. They must not be normalised.

2) Grow the campaign

Your donations are helping us to build the biggest possible campaign to prevent domestic COVID passes. Please keep giving and share the campaign far and wide! It makes such a difference.

We have an expert team of human rights lawyers on standby. If vaccine passes make it through the vote in September, we’ll look to bring a legal challenge immediately.

3) Lobby parliament

Plans for mandatory vaccine passes will have to be put to a vote in Parliament before coming into force. It’s our job to make sure the Government loses. Already, 81 MPs have signed our pledge against COVID passes – we need many more.

Write to your MP. I know many of you are frustrated by your MP’s responses (or lack of), but don’t forget, they work for you, your email will be read, and they need to know how their constituents feel.

We’ve been working around the clock and will have many more campaign actions to come in September as the vote approaches, thanks to your support – watch this space.

This has been a difficult week and the Government’s U-turns on COVID passes have given us all whiplash.

But we can’t just get angry – we’re getting organised.

Thank you for all your support,

Silkie
Director, Big Brother Watch