Posted 12:55pm UK time

The Labour Party have said emergency legislation to ‘stamp out dangerous’ information about vaccines should be introduced.

Whilst many of us will agree that anti-vaccine campaigns over the years have caused harm, the main political issue facing us currently is not a debate between ‘pro-vaccine’ and ‘anti-vaccine’. Instead it is a debate between those who think COVID-19 is an especially bad disease and many government restrictions work and are needed, and those who think the threat of COVID-19 has been exaggerated and government restictions have been wildly disproportionate and may not even work.

To give the government power to stamp out information it sees as unfit is surely unwise in the situation we find out today. One could easily see how such legislation could be used to push away those who are skeptical of government restrictions, by grouping them with the conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers. This legislation carries with it a scent of dogmatism and an unwilligness to allow for dissent, however it is dressed up.

If those people who think a vaccine is necessary for the whole population are confident with their arguments, they could make their case and convince a large enough proportion of the population to accept a vaccine. After all, many people have already accepted the plethora of restrictions enacted so far. Why on earth would a government need strict legislation like this?