Why the WHO’s pandemic planning poses a threat to Britain

The fall-out from Covid continues. Its latest manifestations on the international stage are a draft pandemic preparedness treaty, soon to be formally published and opened for signature by the WHO, and an upcoming vote on proposals to amend the organisation’s International Health Regulations 2005 (IHR). The latter is a set of internationally binding rules for dealing with, among other things, pandemics.

Neither text makes for gripping reading; both might look innocuous and almost uncontroversial. In fact, however, as a group of Tory MPs and peers from the all-party parliamentary group on pandemic response and recovery pointed out this week, they could carry considerable dangers for Britain’s sovereignty, freedom and democracy. 

Of the two, the proposed IHR amendments are the more drastic. Apart from widening the WHO’s discretion to declare a public health emergency, they include a reference to measures to be taken to ‘counter misinformation’.