UK Home Secretary Priti Patel has been recorded saying the nation should have closed its borders in March due to the pandemic.
“‘Turned on [the question of] ‘should we have closed our borders sooner?’ the answer is yes, I advocated closing them last March, ”Patel hears in an audio recording obtained by Guido Fawkes’ politics website.
The recording was made during a Zoom call on Tuesday night with the Conservative Friends of India group.
Asked to comment on the audio recording, an Interior Ministry spokesman did not deny its authenticity and told CNN on Wednesday, “We have strong measures at the border that are vital as we deploy the vaccine.”
The government has been criticized for relaxed measures at the border, which were changed earlier this week. Initially, several countries had travel corridors with the UK, which means visitors could enter the country without having to be isolated for 14 days on arrival.
Comments posted by Patel come after the UK closed all “travel corridors”, effectively closing the country’s borders, for the first time on Monday during the pandemic. The decision was made in response to growing concern about new variants evolving internationally.
According to the government dashboard, the death toll in the UK, Covid-19, is the highest in Europe.
Labor opposition leader Keir Starmer read Patel’s words from the audio recording in parliament on Wednesday and asked why Prime Minister Boris Johnson had overturned Home Secretary on the closures of borders.
Johnson did not discuss what Patel was saying on the recording.
“I think he was the honorable gentleman who last March said we didn’t need to close borders, but as usual, Captain Hindsight has changed his tune for events,” Johnson said.
“We are … in the midst of a national pandemic and this country is facing a very, very serious death toll and we are doing everything we can to protect the British public.”
Johnson joked, “I’m delighted [Starmer] now praises the interior minister, a change of tune “.
Starmer repeated the question, asking again why Johnson had overruled the Home Secretary.
Johnson responded: “We have instituted one of the toughest border regimes in the world and it was only last March that he and many other members of his party continued to support an open border approach.”
In an in-camera interview on Wednesday, Patel’s comments were resent to Johnson. Asked if Britain should have closed its borders last March, he said: “There is a good chance of looking back at what decisions were made when and what approach was taken in March last year … but what I can say today is that the UK is among the toughest border regimes in the world. ”
CNN has contacted the Conservative Friends of India to comment.