The problem with Johnson’s vaccine passports for pubs

The prime minister’s talk about vaccine passports, and publicans turning away potential customers without one, has gone down like a pint of sour beer with the industry. It also shows signs of leaving him with a political hangover headache. 

Publicans were furious. Ditto their industry bodies, the Unite union and some backbench Tory MPs.

Let’s take the concept first. Critics particularly dislike the coercive element, which publicans, desperate to get their businesses going after months of inactivity and steadily mounting debts, would find themselves at the sharp end of. 

But think about it another way. Almost no one objects to them turning away people if they are found to be carrying weapons. Which is more dangerous? A knife on the table in front of someone that could be used to inflict bodily harm on maybe two or three people, or an unvaccinated cough which could spray coronavirus particles around the pub and ultimately lead to a localised outbreak, multiple deaths, and an economically damaging localised lockdown to contain it. 

What if it involves a new variant and moves beyond a local outbreak? 

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Even if the 90 per cent take-up of vaccines continues as the campaign extends through less vulnerable parts of the population, which it won’t, there are still people who could be put at grave risk from new outbreaks. 

Put in those terms, vaccine passports look less draconian. And how coercive are they really? No one’s talking about enforced shots. It’s still your choice. It’s just that if you choose not to have one you may also have to choose not to access certain premises where your choice could endanger others. 

You could even make the case that publicans would ultimately benefit from such a scheme if it boosted confidence and made more people feel safe enough to visit their businesses. 

The problems come with issues of practicality. Don’t have a vaccination card? Fear not. You could always borrow someone else’s. Maybe get a fake on the internet. Drinking unvaccinated could ultimately prove to be a lot easier than drinking underage, which many people get away with, even if passports were required. 

Some licence holders would inevitably turn a blind eye. Then there’s the fact that the industry’s corps of youthful staff is unlikely to have even had vaccination offers by the time pubs have started to reopen, per the government’s stated timetable. 

Johnson has clarified that it may only be possible to introduce such a scheme, which could also be applied in other spheres such as to workers in the care sector, once everyone has at least been offered a vaccine. 

As someone classed as “clinically extremely vulnerable”, with a Covid age of 79 as a result of a medical condition (according to the calculator put up by the Association of Local Authority Medical Advisers), I feel a certain amount of sympathy for the concept. Should I and people like me be put at risk through the selfishness of others who are unwilling to take up the offer of a free jab to protect themselves and their communities? Shouldn’t the burden of responsibility fall on their shoulders? 

But that feeling is at war with my own liberal instincts and the risk of creating of an unvaccinated underclass disproportionately made up of minority ethnic groups, the poor, and especially immigrants. 

These people, among whom take-up has been markedly lower than in the general population, often have good reason to be wary of the state, largely because of the state’s attitude towards them.

I’ve written before that persuasion is a better route to go down than compulsion. A Unison official of my acquaintance recently explained how it had been yielding very positive results in the NHS. 

It’s very clear that a lot more work needs to be done with the groups I’ve highlighted, especially with immigrants. Johnson has previously talked about an amnesty for illegals. Now would be a good time to reheat it because it could encourage take-up. 

That said, the idea of compulsion isn’t going anywhere. If the third wave now raging in Europe does wash up here, as Johnson has suggested, I imagine that it will gain ground. Pandemic-created problems just keep on mounting.