Dear All,

 England’s second Covid-19 lockdown came to an end last week only to be replaced with a system of localised lockdown measures in which areas are categorised according to a tier system where tier 1 is medium alert, tier 2 is high alert and tier 3 is very high alert.

But the new measures have provoked an outcry largely because of the perceived inequality and injustice of the situation. And in many cases the measures have resulted in reinforcing prejudice and division. So, while the localised measures might be justifiable from a public health point of view, the danger is that they may well prove socially and economically toxic.

The government says the tier categorisation is based not just on the incidence or number of cases in an area but also on the hospital facilities available in the area in question. It has concluded, that in the absence of a full lockdown, local lockdowns will be effective in controlling the spread of the virus. But for many people this has reinforced a sense of not just injustice and victimhood but also of outrage and prejudice.

In an earlier phase of local lockdowns the controversy was a north-south one where large areas of the north-east were put into tier 3 and local leaders, such as Manchester’s Labour leader Andy Burnham, were at loggerheads with the Boris Johnson government on this. But the recent categorisation has placed many areas of England – not just northern cities – in tier 3 – that is, very high alert – and this has dismayed many.

Among the areas to be classified as tier 3 is Kent, a prosperous county often referred to as ‘the garden of England.’ This has proved extraordinarily divisive. The nationalist politician, Brexiteer, EU hater, former member of the European Parliament, Trump buddy and general rabble rouser, Nigel Farage expressed and ignited the outrage in a tweet saying “Kent has gone from Tier 1 to Tier 3 because of a single borough. Insane, people are really angry”. The flames of prejudice were stoked further by columnist Rod Liddle in The Sunday Times when he referred to those living in eight Kent areas with high infection rates (Ramsgate, Margate and Broadstairsin) as lowlife plebs: “The county of Kent was placed bodily in tier 3, all because the ghastly, virus-addled plebs in Thanet can’t stop breathing over one another as they swallow jellied eels in some dilapidated phlegm-strewn seaside slum. Does the government not understand that we in proper Kent have nothing in common with those awful people?’

Liddle’s remarks were arrogant, snobbish and offensive, and although they were more overtly classist than racist, they do definitely reinforce the ‘othering’ of certain groups as well as the encouraging of a tendency to regard such people as outsiders, foreigners or ignorant plebs. Against the backdrop of the polarising matter of Brexit, some witty person began a tongue-in-cheek online petition for ‘Swexit’ or the ‘removel of Swale (the offending borough) from the rest of the country. Swexit, humorous as it is, expresses perfectly the social divisions that are being created even as the government struggles to unite people in the battle against the virus. Businesses in the affluent areas were furious because tier 3 restrictions meant that many businesses (such as pubs and restaurants) would not be able to get back to work. But as people in the Kent areas with higher infection rates pointed out, these places are not as well off as the areas that Farage and Liddle inhabit (“proper Kent”), and in these places living conditions are congested and people are, quite simply, poor.

So even though the new government measures may be reasonable if viewed in terms of public health priorities, the truth of the matter is that they will spark a perception of injustice and these government defined geographical boundaries will create social divisions. Think back to the question of the infection rate in the north and the also the fact that people of black and Asian origin are worse hit by this virus and you will recall that there was an underlying sense in the discourse that it was caused by these communities’ tendency to have large families and extended household rather than by anything else. In Berkshire, for example, Slough which has a large Asian population was classed as tier 3 while neighbouring Windsor was declared tier 2 so of course some people might mumble darkly that this was decided “because it’s full of desis, they think the desis like to socialise too much”. This this may not have been a deciding factor at all but the ground is fertile for this sort of distrust.

It’s not, of course, an easy situation for the government and they are under extreme pressure now as Christmas approaches and people are desperate to shop and prepare for that family holiday. But applying local lockdowns is divisive and can also often be arbitrary - after all the outrage last week it was reported that Kent’s case might well be ‘reconsidered’. In a national lockdown, the rules are the same for everyone, but local lockdowns are discriminatory especially if the worse hit areas are also those struggling the most economically. Yes, we must control the virus, but we must also guard against the spread of intolerance and division and the destruction of the social fabric.

Best wishes, 

Umber Khairi