Brighton and Hove City Council to keep Covid-19 measures

But passions ran high as some councillors urged Brighton and Hove City Council to get back to business as usual.

While Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler’s name was invoked in an earlier row about cycle lane petitions, Independent councillor Tony Janio told the meeting that “Joseph Stalin lives”.

In the end it made little difference as members voted along party lines to keep a number of Covid restrictions in place over the coming months. Greens and Labour backed retaining the restrictions, such as masks and testing for meetings, with fewer speakers and less debate.

The Conservatives wanted to end the restrictions, as did Cllr Janio, who was previously the Tory group leader.

The council switched to online meetings when the first national lockdown was imposed in March 2020, with the move backed by a temporary change in the law.

The temporary laws lapsed last May but many councillors felt this was too soon so they returned to the town hall but in a limited way. The measures were agreed between the parties. But the consensus had evaporated by the time the latest version of the rules was debated at the meeting of the full council. Cllr Janio accused the Green council leader Phelim Mac Cafferty of not having “read the science”.

He cited Charles Darwin and said continued mask-wearing and lockdowns prevented the evolution by natural selection of a “less virulent” strain of the Covid-19 virus.

Cllr Janio, who has a PhD in engineering physics and applied physics, said: “By perpetuating these lockdowns and mask-wearing, in very small ways across the country, we’re increasing the length of time that more virulent strains will be among us.

“Then try telling people in two years, who are still passing away from this illness, that we didn’t do our bit. Our bit tonight is to take our masks off. Our bit tonight is to reopen the council and get workers back at work and set an example to this city.”

Independent councillor Tony Janio was critical of the council

Few members of the public are allowed into council meetings at the moment with municipal buildings closed to the public unless they are attending a meeting in person – and many council staff were still working from home.

Cllr Mac Cafferty said 19,903 people were in hospital with the virus, up more than 2,000 on the previous week, and 60 people were in hospital in Brighton with Covid.

He said: “The thing that will stop us fully getting out of Covid is exactly what the government is doing at the moment, which is pretending Covid has magically gone away.

“That is the very thing that’s far more likely to see more variants happen and this pandemic get worse. You don’t get rid of a pandemic by pretending it doesn’t exist – and the figures are stark.”

He said the meeting arrangements balanced the transparency of the decision-making process with the protection of everyone’s health and safety.

Conservative councillor Dawn Barnett said the council needed to open its buildings again, saying it “looked silly” for staying closed to the public. She said: “Councillors must lead the way by returning to Hove Town Hall for meetings. After all, how can councillors expect others to come back to work if councillors are not fully attending meetings themselves.

“Everybody is talking about Covid but for many years now the elderly vulnerable ill people go into hospital with other things wrong with them. Elderly vulnerable people die every year from pneumonia and flu but this year, amazingly, nobody has died of flu. No one dies of pneumonia. It’s all Covid – and I don’t believe it all.”

Labour councillor Amanda Evans said even those who had their jabs were experiencing an illness that was more than “flu”.

She said fellow Councillor Amanda Grimshaw, was not at the meeting because she was still unwell with long Covid four weeks after contracting the coronavirus.

Independent councillor Bridget Fishleigh said her temperature had been checked before a recent meeting in London and asked whether the council could try something similar.

People with a high temperature were immediately sent home, she said, which helped to limit transmission.