A man crosses London’s Westminster Bridge in December 2020. | Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images

Amid rising cases, Prime Minister Boris Johnson banned nonessential travel and ordered business closures for much of southeast England.

Facing a new, and potentially more contagious, variant of the coronavirus, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is implementing lockdown measures in London and throughout southeast England that include a ban on holiday gatherings outside immediate households.

Coming after months of a patchwork response to the pandemic from Johnson’s administration — and a week after assurances that Christmas celebrations with up to three separate households would be permitted — his critics are pointing to this latest response as further evidence of shaky leadership amid a crisis that has led to nearly 2 million Britons infected with Covid-19, and has killed more than 67,000.

Johnson announced the measures on Saturday following an