Boris Johnson accused of border 'incompetence'

Boris Johnson has insisted the UK has “one of the toughest border regimes anywhere in the world” after the government was accused of "unforgivable incompetence" in managing Britain's borders.

The Prime Minister claimed the Government “moved as fast as we could” to launch its quarantine hotel policy.

Public Health England has identified six UK cases of the concerning P1 variant first detected in the Brazilian city of Manaus – three in England and three in Scotland.

This has led to accusations that stricter and quicker restrictions should have been imposed on international arrivals.

Labour's shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said: "This is unforgivable incompetence from the UK government.

"Despite being warned time and time again, they have failed to act to protect our borders against emerging Covid variants and could put at risk the gains from the vaccine.

"People will be appalled to hear someone with the Brazilian variant cannot be identified, raising questions about how many others may have been missed by quarantine measures."

UK nationals or residents have continued to be allowed to return from Brazil using indirect fights.

The requirement for them to carry out their 10-day quarantine period at a hotel was only implemented on February 15, around a month after concerns about the variant became widespread.

Mr Johnson told reporters: “We have got one of the toughest border regimes anywhere in the world for stopping people coming in to this country who may have variants of concern.”

Asked if the Government was too slow to implement quarantine hotel measures, the Prime Minister replied: “I don’t think so – we moved as fast as we could to get that going.

“It’s a very tough regime – you come here, you immediately get transported to a hotel where you are kept for 10 days, 11 days.

“You have to test on day two, you have to test on day eight, and it’s designed to stop the spread of new variants while we continue to roll out the vaccination programme.”

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the discovery of the Brazilian coronavirus variant in the UK shows the Government has not “secured our borders in the way we should have done”.

Speaking at a virtual meeting with Welsh businesses to mark St David’s Day, Mr Starmer said: “It demonstrates the slowness of the Government to close off even the major routes, but also the unwillingness to confront the fact that the virus doesn’t travel by direct flights.

“We know from last summer that a lot of virus came in from countries where it didn’t originate in, but people were coming indirect, and that’s the way people travel.”

Wales First Minister Mark Drakeford told the meeting he had “worries” about Mr Johnson’s plan for international holidays to resume in May for people in England.

He said: “I would build the walls higher for now against the risk that we would bring into this country the variants that could be brewing in any part of the world, and could then put at risk all the careful work we have done to try and keep Wales safe.”

Labour MP Yvette Cooper, who chairs the Home Affairs Select Committee, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We need to look at how these cases have arrived in the country in the first place in order to prevent others doing so.”

Mr Cooper said many travellers would have taken indirect flights from Brazil, and that the situation highlighted “gaps” in the system.

She went on: “These cases seem to have arrived a month after the Brazil variant was first identified and we were raising with the Government the need for stronger action.”