John McDonnell MP, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, has called on Boris Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak to stop dithering and launch an international intervention to agree a global co-ordinated response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying:

“Despite my repeated calls on four occasions in the last fortnight for the government to work internationally to co-ordinate a response to the coronavirus, there has been no leadership and no action from either the Prime Minister or the Chancellor. It seems Number 10 is following Donald Trump’s lead yet again.

“We are saying to Boris Johnson, bluntly, get off your backside and show some international leadership. That is what UK Prime Ministers of all political colours have traditionally done.

“So far Johnson seems to have self-isolated himself from his international responsibilities. We are facing the risk of a global recession so we need global economic co-ordination and a global economic strategy as Labour secured in the last major crisis of 2007/8.”