Holidays abroad are illegal from Monday

[Dugee]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9389921/Ban-leaving-UK-amid-new-coronavirus-laws-force-week.html

Along with any other unnecessary travel abroad.

You can never lock down enough to eliminate a virus. It’s a virus you can only ever attempt to control the spread. You can only attempt to eliminate it. It will either die out or mutate. This could go on indefinitely even with vaccinations and herd immunity.

@Dontforgetyourbrolly

A lot of holiday haters here. Do you also hate all the hotel staff , airline staff , tour operators and travel agents like me that have lost their jobs ? There are 2 sides to every story .

And not just that - the coach company staff, people who work in restaurants/bars not just overseas but in this country too, pilots, air traffic control staff, everyone who works in an airport/port... It's a massive sector which has suffered hugely. And as others have posted, holidays are not the only reason for travel.

Shops and restaurants have tried their hardest to adapt by offering click and collect, takeaway, meal kits at home. The travel sector is closed - end of story.

COVID IS NOT THE ONLY THING WHICH MATTERS. There is a hardcore on here though which would happily stay sealed in their homes forever, cowering inf fear of germs and covid.

I feel that a holiday abroad is way down the list of priorities.

We need to focus on people needing healthcare, getting students back to F2F teaching, opening up hospitality, opening up other business that have been affected by covid, allowing friends and family to see each other. Basically, anything to boost the physical and mental health and economy of our nation.

As someone pointed out upthread, covid took away our freedom, but the conspiracy theorists seem to want to ignore this.

@FurrySlipperBoots

Wait, you mean they were legal up til now?!

This!

I think if the Govt had done the same back in Feb. 2020 half-term (as well as stopping so much air travel) and stuck to it, we might not have been in the situation we now find ourselves in. I am sure the holidays abroad over the summer did not help with the new mutant variant that spread like wildfire in the autumn.

@BackforGood

What's more shocking is that this wasn't the case a year ago.

Like Australia and like New Zealand, we are an island nation.
Let's compare the data.......

Australia and Zealand are hundreds/thousands of miles from fucking anywhere. I can be in France in just over an hour. Fucksake

If they did it a year ago we might not be in this position. Bit fucking late now.

@Pinchoftums I grew up in a non democracy and family friends actually died fighting it. I dont need a lecture thanks.
The point is its a slippery slope. You give up your freedoms at your peril.

You can still travel abroad for funerals, of course

And to visit your holiday home. Apparently second home owners don't transmit viruses.

Allowing the "Stanley Johnson" exception in the legislation rather gives the lie to virus spread being the priority or the fiction that we are "all in it together".

I'm glad that the government is doing this. It seems totally sensible.

Bit back to front. The borders should have been shut from day one!

The most worrying thing for me, as this thread shows, is how willingly people are seeing their rights eroded and not only complying, with wails of “but we are in the midst of a global pandemic” but thinking that this is actually a good thing.
Quite how there isn’t mass riots is beyond me. Oh wait...
So no, North Korea it ain’t, but a police state, it seems to be. And again, people are going along with this happily.

this level of state interference in our lives is against everything that the Tories usually hold dear, hence the pressure Johnson is under from the likes of the CRG

There has never been a shortage of control freaks in the Tory party. Plenty of enthusiasts for the Snoopers' Charter, plenty of support for banning the plebs from protesting (on grounds of being an "annoyance") and without an end date.

That wing of the party has only ever been interested in "liberties" as it affects the right of employers to hire and fire, of landlords to evict and profit. When it comes to the masses it wants control just as much as the loonier fringes of the left.

I don’t have a problem with it
It’s a bloody pandemic it won’t last forever and these restrictions won’t either

Anyone comparing us with North Korea really needs to educate themselves - it’s a place where children are excused from lessons to witness public executions ffs
It’s completely incomparable

yes, maybe they should have been shut earlier. But we have to deal with the present situation, there is no point in revisiting past decisions.

The difference is though (again FOR FUCKSAKE PEOPLE) we are run by Tories. Tories, ok? For all their faults, extremely liberal and non-authoritarian at heart, most of them. Unlike authoritarian regimes, they are not making up these rules and laws and creating the largest national debt ever known because it's their fundamental ideology and for a laugh, they are doing it all through gritted teeth, especially public spending, because they feel there is no alternative!

I am desperately missing my family. My entire family lives abroad. I haven't seen them in close to 2 years. They have not met their first grandchild. I wasn't able to see my dad when he was in hospital twice. I wasn't able to be there for my sister during a crisis. So please don't tell me that these rules are reasonable. I don't want a holiday. I want a sensible pathway for those of us with legitimate reasons to be able to leave the country. I am not even a citizen of the UK FFS. I am vaccinated too. It's insanity that I am barred from leaving.

@QuiteContraryMarie

The most worrying thing for me, as this thread shows, is how willingly people are seeing their rights eroded and not only complying, with wails of “but we are in the midst of a global pandemic” but thinking that this is actually a good thing. Quite how there isn’t mass riots is beyond me. Oh wait... So no, North Korea it ain’t, but a police state, it seems to be. And again, people are going along with this happily.

I agree. What if you're a dual national and you want to leave, get the fuck out of this shithole? Now it's illegal?

We have lost freedom and people have accepted it - initially I felt that was exceptable but I feel that we have given up so much and the impact upon normal life is too high a price to pay

It's odd timing I do agree, but maybe that's how long it takes to make things law.
They should never have discussed travelling abroad in May, that was always too soon and it's given people false expectations about foreign travel.

I feel for you Hawse, and support you going. But I wouldn't be happy about you being allowed to come back.

@Hawse I'm not fully up on this, but does that mean you're barred from leaving even if you don't intend to come back ? If that's the case that does seem wrong.

@C8H10N4O2

this level of state interference in our lives is against everything that the Tories usually hold dear, hence the pressure Johnson is under from the likes of the CRG

There has never been a shortage of control freaks in the Tory party. Plenty of enthusiasts for the Snoopers' Charter, plenty of support for banning the plebs from protesting (on grounds of being an "annoyance") and without an end date.

That wing of the party has only ever been interested in "liberties" as it affects the right of employers to hire and fire, of landlords to evict and profit. When it comes to the masses it wants control just as much as the loonier fringes of the left.

I think you'll find that the Conservatives are driven by their right wing of ultra libertarian nutcases like Jacob Rees Mogg which led to things like leaving the EU. The only saving grace is that this group must be absolutely doing their nut at the moment.

Until other countries are able to get vaccinating people to an effective level why would we want to go to places with rapidly escalating cases (with the inevitable consequences of new mutations emerging) and put the progress finally made in the uk in jeopardy yet again.

This is nothing to do with rights, freedom, repression and everything to do with doing the least worst things to get and keep cases down until other countries are able to get themselves into a better situation.

Any comparisons to N Korea, war, The Handmaidens sodding Tale are ludicrous and insulting to people throughout the world who are suffering under heinous dictators. I sympathise with people who want to see family. I’m desperate to get on a plane and hug mine. But they are doing badly with covid where they are so i wouldn’t go right now even if it were allowed. It’s just too risky.

I really wouldn’t want to be going abroad right now and I’m happy with the restrictions on travel.

I’ve booked 5 nights in London for later in the year, I’ll be happy with that. Can’t wait! If it has to be cancelled then so be it.