However, Mr Johnson was warned on Sunday he would face a Cabinet backlash if he adopted a ban on households mixing and closure of non-essential shops.
“The Cabinet aren’t stomaching any more restrictions right now,” said one Cabinet minister. “Apart from the fanatics, Michael Gove and Sajid Javid, the rest of them are pretty sensible, including the PM.”
The Cabinet was briefed on Saturday by Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, and Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, who were “trying to soften us up for what [restrictions] were to come next,” said a Cabinet minister.
The two scientists echoed Sage advisers in saying more measures were urgently required to stop hospital admissions soaring above 3,000 a day in England but the Cabinet minister claimed: “Their data was just trashed by the Cabinet. We tore them apart.
“There will be no more restrictions brought in by the backdoor. That would be fatal. More guidelines rather than restrictions are entirely possible.”
Guidance, rather than regulations, believed to be the most favoured option
Mr Johnson is understood to favour the most ‘light touch’ option presented to him.
“It is guidance but not regulations on household mixing,” said a Government source – similar to the Scottish Government’s advice which currently urges families to limit gatherings to three households except on Christmas Day.
However, the source added: “The third tier is the heaviest covering everything up to and including lockdown. On the basis of the data, there are some who believe we could quite easily justify locking down before Christmas.”
On Tuesday, Mr Johnson suffered the biggest rebellion of his premiership and was forced to rely on Labour votes to pass his Plan B regulations in the Commons.
Mr Javid reaffirmed that Parliament would be recalled if the Government sought to introduce more restrictions. He suggested ministers may need to act even if the data on omicron was still not clear. “If we wait until the data is perfect, it may be too late,” he said.
A government source said: “We have a plan in place which is Plan B, which we only introduced last week and we have the massive acceleration of the booster programme. We are looking at the impact of those.”
