Will this be a mandatory vaccine in all but name?

We have been told that participation in the vaccination programme is voluntary. But is this another in a long line of deceits?

Participation in the COVID-19 vaccination programme is purportedly voluntary. Vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi has dismissed the notion that people should be forced to ‘take the jab’, saying that’s ‘not how we do things in the U.K.’. But might this guarantee — like so many others given by the Government over the last year (and before) — turn out to be specious?

Already, we seem to be approaching a state in which the vaccine is voluntary in name, but mandatory in practice.

It was recently reported that ministers are arguing in favour of a scheme in which employers could insist that all of their staff get vaccinated under the pretext of laws governing health and safety at work. The Daily Telegraph published the following from a Government source:

‘If someone is working in an environment where people haven’t been vaccinated, it becomes a public health risk. Health and safety laws say you have to protect other people at work, and when it becomes about protecting other people the argument gets stronger. If there is clear evidence that vaccines prevent transmission, the next stage is to make sure more and more people are taking up the vaccine. If people have allergies or other reasons for not getting jabbed, then of course they should be exempt, but where it’s an unjustified fear, we have got to help people get into the right place.’

If non-vaccination was such an issue, surely those unable to participate in the programme due to ‘allergies or other reasons’ would not be able to continue going to work and putting others at risk — under the Government’s logic.

Whether the Government approves of such a scheme or not, individuals who decide against taking the vaccine will certainly face difficulties from businesses who choose to refuse them work as a result.

Barchester Healthcare — a leading private care home provider which runs more than 200 homes — has announced that it ‘will not hire someone who has refused to have the vaccine on non-medical grounds’. The firm will not sack those already in employment who do not take the vaccine, but will instead offer them ‘behavioural nudges’.

If non-vaccinators don’t face difficulty from potential employers, it seems that they certainly will when attempting — at long last — to travel abroad.

Here again, we have long been told ‘vaccine passports’ will not be required; yet thousands of pounds of taxpayer of money has been given to various ventures to create such passports.

Again from The Daily Telegraph:

‘Logifect, a firm handed £62,000 in grants by the agency InnovateUK, has designed a phone app, due to launch next month, that allows Britons to show confirmation of their vaccinations.

‘iProov and Mvine, two companies given a £75,000 grant for their joint drive, are working on digital "certificates" that would allow people to prove their immunity when asked.’

The paper was right to point out that whilst ministers have publicly been critical of such schemes, privately they have been far more ‘nuanced’.

It is understood that whilst ‘vaccine passports’ would be deployed initially for foreign travel, they would likely later be used allow ‘people to take part in another activity.’

Can the vaccination programme really be called ‘voluntary’, or does it represent yet another breach of our fast-eroding liberty?