Tory Brexiteer MP accused of spreading conflicting advice surrounding the coronavirus lockdown

Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen appeared on Good Morning Britain (GMB) to tell presenter Piers Morgan that it was fine to visit people outside one’s household as long as social distancing rules were maintained.

Picking up on the alleged confusion over new social distancing rules, Morgan criticised the MP for North West Leicestershire as having ‘no clue’ of what the measures ‘actually’ were.

Morgan said: ‘This is the problem Andrew Bridgen. You see, what you’ve just said is completely against the new rules as stated.

‘You’ve just told me to do something I’m not allowed to do.’

Have your say
 
Send your letters for publication to The New European by emailing letters@theneweuropean.co.uk and pick up an edition each Thursday for more comment and analysis. Find your nearest stockist here or subscribe to a print or digital edition for just £13. You can also join our readers' Facebook group to keep the discussion and debate going with thousands of fellow pro-Europeans.

MORE: Labour says lockdown announcement ‘unravelling’ after Dominic Raab’s broadcast interviews

In Sunday night’s address to the nation, prime minister Boris Johnson lifted restrictions on exercise and work travel. He advised that the public could exercise more than once a day and urged workers who could travel to their workplace to do so. Advice around meeting people not living in the same household is yet to be defined.

Morgan blamed Bridgen for inflating that uncertainty: ‘This is the problem, there is no clarity; it’s a load of old flannel talking about controlling the virus and you, as a leading, high-profile Conservative politician haven’t got a clue what these rules actually mean.’

MORE: Newspapers brand Boris Johnson’s lockdown exit plan ‘vague’ and ‘indecisive

When Bridgen accused Morgan of a ‘diatribe’ against the prime minister, he replied: ‘Let me explain what my diatribe is. We have, according to the government’s own graphs, and you can spin them any way you like, the second worst death toll in the world…’

‘When you come on and say, ‘I heard your diatribe against Boris Johnson’; the diatribe is because so many people have died and so many people are continuing to die.’

‘Bridgen doesn’t even know his own set of rules!’, tweeted viewer Neil Mortimer, before adding: ‘What hope does the nation have.’

Otto English wrote: ‘Andrew Bridgen MP would be out of his depth in an empty paddling pool.’