MPs in Wales have decided to extend questionable COVID passports to cinemas, theatres and concert halls.
People have been asked to prove they’re completely vaccinated or have tested negative for the virus to enter nightclubs and comparable venues since last month.
However, from November 15, admission to cinemas, theatres and concert halls will be governed by the scheme after members of the Welsh Parliament dramatically approved the extension to a mixed response.
The new law brought by the Labour government passed with 39 Members of the Senedd voting for and 15 against, with the Welsh Conservatives and Liberal Democrats Jane Dodds opposed.
Officials insisted that the COVID passport was popular, with Health Minister Eluned Morgan saying the extension was intended to keep cinemas and theatres open over the winter months.
And the First Minister, Mark Drakeford, has threatened to extend the passes further if cases, deaths and hospital admissions rise. Public Health Wales gives the latest seven day average COVID case rate as 527.7 per 100,000 people. Nevertheless, official figures reveal that rates across the entire UK have continued to fall.
Yesterday contrasts with October, when Welsh ministers won the first vote on COVID passes by just a single vote after one Conservative MS was unable to log on to Zoom to vote remotely.
At the time, the Welsh government, which holds precisely half of the 60 seats in the Senedd, had suffered defeat with the entire opposition united against the dubious scheme.
Demonstrators gathered on the steps of the Welsh Parliament in Cardiff Bay yesterday amid concerns over the implications of the passports on civil freedoms. The extension has also divided opinion amongst those working in hospitality, which has been hard hit by COVID restrictions.
Last night, civil liberties campaigners Big Brother Watch said it was starting legal proceedings against the Welsh government, calling the plans authoritarian, invasive and unevidenced.
Their pre-action letter sent to the Welsh government claims no proof has been presented that the compulsory use of COVID passes would benefit public health and that the disproportionate scheme breaches the right to privacy under the Human Rights Act.
Tory constitutional representative Darren Millar said there were various ethical and equality issues with COVID passes, and he added that you can swab your dog and put its results in that system and still get your vaccine passport to be able to attend any event, nightclub, cinema, theatre or anywhere else and that it was ridiculous.
And this simply looks like an attack on the entertainment industry and bullying by the Welsh Government, and this is just a war on humankind, and this will be the end of cinemas because fewer people go to them already and even fewer will go now.
Whether you’re double, triple jabbed or not, this is tyrannical and we shouldn’t be pandering to it, and this is a discriminatory dictatorship that we’re now living in.
Some people out there said that governments would put an end to certain things, but they were labelled conspiracy theorists in tin foil hats, well they weren’t wrong, were they, and in the end, you’ll have to show your little pass just so that you can leave the house with COVID checkpoints on the streets, but a year ago some people were branded crazy for even suggesting such a thing, yet here we are.
This is discrimination or apartheid, call it what you will, and this is madness because we’re supposed to be a liberated country, so what happened to freedom of choice?
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 