Should the lockdown protests worry Boris?

Jeremy Corbyn’s brother, Piers, was among 19 people arrested at an anti-lockdown protest in Hyde Park at the weekend. The protest was small, as were those held in other cities across Britain, including ones in Belfast and Glasgow. Signs and chants held by demonstrators linked 5G and coronavirus. And familiar anti-Bill Gates slogans were chanted. It’s easy to dismiss the protesters as a bunch of eccentrics. But doing so might be a mistake.

It’s plausible to argue that the government should be pleased that the first public protests against the lockdown, coming almost two months after it was brought in, were both small and attended by people with fringe politics. Yet the protests should worry Boris Johnson and his cabinet, not just in relation to the coronavirus strategy but in regard to their whole project.

Piers Corbyn’s attendance was something of a red herring for several reasons. Labour politicians and the wider left are united in not only being pro-lockdown, but in many cases demonstrating borderline lockdown zealotry.