The head of the Conservative 1922 Committee has attacked the prospect of retaining masks past “freedom day” as a form of “social control”.
Sir Graham Brady, who is the leader of the influential Conservative 1922 Committee, argued in a piece for The Mail on Sunday that the Government had been using the restrictions to control citizens. He also claimed that citizens were exhibiting signs of Stockholm Syndrome due the restrictions.
He argued that: “The line between coercion and care becomes blurred – the hostage starts to see the man with the AK-47 who holds him in a cell not as a jailer but as a protector.
“For 16 months, the British population has been subject not just to minute control but to a constantly changing menu of restrictions.”
He then went on to attack the continued insistence that citizens wear masks. He said:
“Many politicians and advisers will admit privately that the policy change compelling people to wear masks was not really about the spread of infection at all but about the psychological effect that they would have.
“That real purpose is social control – to provide a constant reminder to maintain distance from other people.
“To maintain a state of anxiety that leaves people more likely to comply with the restrictions that might otherwise be resisted or forgotten.”
Sir Graham Brady has consistently voted against the Government’s restrictions.
He said in March:
