Johnson now travels world telling anyone who will listen “Brexit saved lives” - hold onto your seats

as I try and explain in in Unleashed if you look at it um much to my amazement within weeks of having delivered the full brexit and really taken legislative control of our country for the first time in 45 years we had the power to set our own regulation that came good and 27 EU countries waited and waited and waited to give approval to vaccinations for covid and because we were outside the EU we down well did it within weeks and um as soon as we had the vaccines and that made a material difference we had the fastest vaccine roll out we got drugs into elderly vulnerable frightened people faster than any other European country into their arms and we had protection faster than anywhere else because of brexit now people say you know all the disaster I I say brexit saved lives it's bad enough that the former prime minister is allowed to get away with this absolute bollocks unchallenged on UK news shows now he's out spouting it across the world Johnson has repeatedly made this claim about brexit and the vaccine roll out people always say well we'll get to that so I can't complete this point why can't I complete this point people we'll get to that we get we we'll get to the vaccine uh but then we had the freedom yes because of the particular model of brexit that we I had fought for we had the freedom to vaccinate faster than anybody else and that saved lives and the idea that brexit saved lives is one that I think people will find EX infuriating exasperate but it's true and it's there at the heart of the of the story it's absolutely disgraceful for the former prime minister to keep repeating this it's completely untrue and continuously goes on challenged as I've said many times EU legislation enacted into British law already allow countries to temporarily authorize vaccines without waiting for approval from the European medicines agency in fact the UK government always made it clear that it could authorize vaccines unilaterally under European law before we left the EU don't just take my word for it here's the actual head of the UK's medicines and healthc care products regulatory agency June rain we appear to be getting uh authorization for this vaccine ahead of um our friends in Europe I was just wondering does the fact that the UK is no longer part of the EU did that make any difference to the speed with which you're able to um complete your authorization we have been able to authorize the supply of this vaccine using Provisions under European law which exist until the 1st of January and if that's not enough for you here is the independent fact Checker full fact fact under European law the UK was permitted to act independently to approve the vaccine in an emergency and here is Channel 4 fact check as a UK government press release from 23rd of November 2020 States if a suitable covid-19 vaccine candidate becomes available before the end of the transition period EU legislation which we have implemented via regulation 174 of the human medicin regulations allows the MH to temporarily authorize the supply of a medicine or vaccine based on public health need so even if we were still a member of the EU the UK regulator would have been able to take this decision on its own because EU law already allows it we simply cannot allow those previously in power to just rewrite history like this