Fairness claims are a lieīut the content is also a lie, in its own right. It was not unveiled out of need, but to conceal their lawbreaking. They may have been working on this for a while, but the rushed announcement is down to Partygate.
So the policy itself is a lie, in its timing and its aim. This is a government which can only survive to the extent that it sows division in the British public. If they can centre that in the political debate they have a chance of resurrecting the tribal animosity of the Brexit years which handed them their 2019 election victory. They want liberal and progressive people to be outraged. In the end, the plan is to use hardline immigration and Brexit policies to cut open the old culture war scars and make them bleed again. The project has the secondary effect of bolstering Johnson’s standing among the Tory backbenchers who hold his fate in their hands. To ignore it is to conspire in the moral disintegration of the country.
To engage in the plan is to allow them to distract from Partygate. You get trapped in the arrangement they laid. The story has dominated coverage for two days. And, for the record, it has absolutely worked. They were in trouble, so they suddenly present this grotesque announcement, which they know is so obscene that it will suck up all the political oxygen. It’s to distract attention from Partygate. Let’s be clear why this is being announced now.