Tag Archives: Boris Johnson

Britain, European Union, Government, Politics, Society

Brexit: Boris Johnson’s 9 key points

BREXIT

IN a 4,000-word essay by British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson which appeared in the Daily Telegraph over the past few days, critics have accused Mr Johnson of trying to bounce the Prime Minister into backing his version of Brexit. Supporters say his upbeat assessment is a vital antidote to the gloom of Remainers. This article examines what he said – and what he meant.

. Johnson’s Red Lines

“Before the referendum we all agreed on what leaving the EU logically must entail: leaving the customs union and the single market, leaving the penumbra of the ECJ; taking back control of borders, cash, laws. That is the programme that Theresa May set out with such clarity… and that is what she and her government will deliver.”

What he means: This might appear to be a simple restatement of government policy. But Mr Johnson’s decision to highlight it days before the prime minister makes a major speech on Brexit is designed to stop her moving an inch on his key red lines.

. Not A Penny More

“We would not expect to pay for access to their markets any more than they would expect to pay for access to ours. Once we have settled our accounts, we will take back control of roughly £350million per week.”

What he means: This is the point on which Mr Johnson is most at odds with Mrs May. He appears to set himself against making payments during a transition out of the EU. And his claim that the UK will repatriate £350million a week leaves no scope for any ongoing payments to Brussels.

Boris Johnson, the British Foreign Secretary, has set out his vision of post-Brexit Britain.

. A Pledge To The NHS

“It would be a fine thing, as many of us have pointed out, if a lot of that [£350million a week] went on the NHS, provided we use that cash to modernise.”

What he means: Mr Johnson has been stung by claims that he lied about increasing funding for the NHS in last year’s EU referendum. He and other Cabinet Eurosceptics are pushing hard for an increase in NHS funding after Brexit.

. Slashing Red Tape

“As we take back control of our cash, and our borders, and our laws, we will of course not jettison what is good… But over time we will be able to diverge from the great accumulated conglomerate, to act with regulatory freedom.”

What he means: Mrs May is expected to use her speech this week to reassure EU leaders she will not lead a regulatory ‘race to the bottom’ after Brexit, giving the UK a competitive advantage over the EU. But Mr Johnson is anxious Britain does not abandon the opportunity to ditch decades of red tape blamed for stifling innovation and the economy.

. Taxes

“We should seize the opportunity of Brexit to reform our tax system. Andy Haldane, the Bank of England’s chief economist, argued in 2015 that our system is currently skewed so as to discourage investment. He believes that reform could raise output by around 20 per cent.”

What he means: Mr Johnson is keen to ensure that Mrs May and Chancellor Philip Hammond do not lock Britain into following the EU’s high-tax model after Brexit.

. Border Control

“We will have an immigration policy that suits the UK, not slamming the door, but welcoming the talent we need, from the EU and around the world. Of course we will make sure that business gets the skills it needs, but business will no longer be able to use immigration as an excuse not to invest in the young people of this country.”

What he means: Taking back control of Britain’s borders was a key Vote Leave message. Mr Johnson is serving notice to business leaders that they will have to start training British youngsters rather than relying on an endless supply of cheap migrant workers.

. Don’t Trust Corbyn

“We have a glorious future, but hardly any of this would be possible under the bizarre and incoherent plans of the Labour Party. It seems that [Jeremy] Corbyn has chickened out. Now it appears he wants to remain in the single market and the customs union. He would… turn an opportunity into a national humiliation. It would be the worst of both worlds, with the UK turned into a vassal state – taking direction from the EU but with no power to influence the EU’s decisions.”

What he means: Mr Johnson saves his fiercest criticism for Labour, pointing out that Mr Corbyn’s flip-flopping on the issue has betrayed traditional Labour supporters who voted in vast numbers to leave the EU.

. Proud To Be British

“When people say that they feel they have more in common with others in Europe than with people who voted leave I want to say, ‘But that is part of the reason why people voted leave.’ You don’t have to be some tub-thumping nationalist to worry that a transnational sense of allegiance can weaken the ties between us; and you don’t have to be an out-and-out nationalist to feel an immense pride in this country and what it can do.”

What he means: This is very much in line with Mrs May’s attack on self-proclaimed ‘citizens of the world’ who end up being ‘citizens of nowhere’. Both believe Britain is in danger of being undermined by a lack of patriotism in sections of society and key institutions.

. Forget Project Fear

“I do not underestimate the scale of the task ahead as we take back control of our destiny. All I say is that they are in grievous error, all those who write off this country, who think we don’t have it in us, who think that we lack the nerve and the confidence to tackle the task ahead. They have been proved wrong before, and believe me they will be proved wrong again.”

What he means: Mr Johnson fears gloomy talk about Brexit will become a self-fulfilling prophecy unless challenged publicly. He notes that many of the ‘Project Fear’ claims made by the Remainers turned out to be utterly baseless.

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G7, Government, Politics, Russia, Syria, United States

Boris Johnson is right in cancelling his Moscow trip

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Boris Johnson was due for crunch talks with Russia over the Syria crisis but cancelled the trip.

The British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has come under fire both from Russia and political opponents at home for pulling out of a planned visit to Moscow in the wake of the Syrian chemical weapon atrocity.

Rather than travelling to Moscow to meet Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, he travelled to Italy for a G7 meeting, where he will seek political consensus for Russian President Vladimir Putin to pull his troops from Syria.

His Russian visit would have been the first by a United Kingdom Foreign Secretary in five years and was cancelled after discussions with the US, which is sending Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Moscow to deliver a “clear and co-ordinated” message to the Kremlin. It has inevitably opened Mr Johnson to the charge that he has ceded our diplomatic position to the US and left the UK with little by way of a credible independent voice of its own.

Moscow has predictably seized on this point, saying his decision casts doubt on the value of speaking to the UK “which does not have its own position on the majority of present-day issues, nor does it have real influence on the course of international affairs, as it remains ‘in the shadow’ of its strategic partners.”

But that should not be allowed to be a smokescreen by missing the greater issue at stake here: the Assad regime did indeed cross a line on a bombing mission which resulted in the use of chemical weapons against civilians and children in particular.

It is surely now up to President Putin who has defended the Assad regime to distance himself from an action that has outraged the world and to bring pressure to bear to ensure that there is no repetition of this appalling crime.

Indeed, until there is some clear indication from Moscow that it is open to movement on this point, the most appropriate response from the UK would be to leave in no doubt Russia’s isolation from normal diplomatic exchanges. These proceed on the basis of a shared commitment to respect for international law and UN-approved protocols that govern behaviour in armed conflict.

The ball is now firmly in Moscow’s court. And now is the time to press home the point that those who have backed the Syrian regime and extended Assad’s grip on power cannot be expected to enjoy normal diplomatic courtesies. The Foreign Secretary’s decision to lend UK support to a joint G7 call for a response is likely to carry more clout than the UK pleading on its own. Indeed, it is just the sort of co-ordinated international response that opposition parties would be urging in this situation.

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Britain, Government, Syria, United Nations

Assad’s trail of torture and extermination

SYRIA

Intro: Boris Johnson sickened by Amnesty report that Syrian regime ‘exterminated’ 13,000 captives.

The British Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, has said he was “sickened” by reports that Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria has tortured and hanged 13,000 political prisoners in four years.

Amid compelling evidence that the Syrian president’s henchmen carried out an unprecedented “policy of extermination”, Mr Johnson said the dictator had “no future as leader”.

Civilians perceived to be opposed to the brutal regime – including medical doctors and aid workers – were executed in mass hangings of up to 50 detainees at a time, according to a chilling Amnesty International dossier.

Victims were given death sentences after sham trials lasting less than three minutes, often on the basis of confessions extracted through torture, the human rights charity has said. Many thousands of others held at the notorious 20,000-capacity Saydnaya military prison, north of Damascus, died from starvation and disease.

Amnesty International’s year-long investigation drew on graphic accounts from witnesses, including judges, officials, and former guards at the prison.

One source, a former military officer known only as Hamid, who was arrested in 2011, described hearing the killings taking place from the floor above. He said: ‘If you put your ears on the floor, you could hear the sound of a kind of gurgling … We were sleeping on top of the sound of people choking to death.’

The bodies of those hanged are believed to have been dumped in mass graves on military land on the outskirts of the war-ravaged capital.

The report said it was ‘inconceivable that these large-scale practices have not been authorised at the highest levels of the Syrian government’.

It is the first evidence said to prove that Assad, 51, has authorised torture to punish opponents and crush dissent. He has long been suspected of such action.

Individual death sentences are supposed to be approved by either the Syrian minister of defence or the chief of staff of the army, both of whom are authorised to act on behalf of Assad.

map-torture-prison-syria

Thousands hanged at Saydnaya prison, Amnesty International has said.

Following publication of the study, Mr Johnson took to social media networking site Twitter, and said: ‘Sickened by reports from Amnesty International on executions in Syria. Assad responsible for so many deaths and has no future as leader.’

His comments appear to back away from his suggestions last month that Assad could be allowed to run for re-election in a bid to end Syrian’s civil war, which has left nearly 400,000 dead and half the population displaced.

A statement released by 10 Downing Street said: ‘The Foreign Secretary stressed that Britain [doesn’t] believe that Assad can govern the country or take control of its democratically elected government.’

Amnesty’s report, titled Human Slaughterhouse, reveals that as well as extrajudicial executions, the Syrian authorities are deliberately inflicting horrific conditions on detainees, including torture and denial of food, water and medicine.

Since the uprising began in 2011, the prison has been filled with those accused of opposing Assad or taking part in anti-government protests, as well as military personnel said to be working against the regime or plotting to defect.

Upon arriving at Saydnaya, they undergo a brutal session of beating – referred to as the ‘welcome party’. Witnesses described a methodical routine to the killings, in which the doomed detainees were collected from their cell blocks in the afternoon and told they were being transferred to civilian prisons.

Instead, they were moved to a facility in the grounds known as the ‘red building’, where they were beaten for several hours.

Between midnight and 3am, they were then blindfolded and moved in delivery trucks and minibuses to another part of the jail called the ‘white building’. There, they were taken into a basement room, nooses were placed around their necks and they were hanged. Following the executions, the prisoners’ bodies were taken to Tishreen military hospital where they were registered as having died of natural causes. The corpses were then loaded onto trucks to be secretly buried in mass graves, the report said. Families of the dead were never informed.

Amnesty said the evidence, from between 2011 and 2015, amounted to crimes against humanity and called on the UN to investigate.

A spokesperson for Amnesty said: ‘The horrors depicted in this report reveal a hidden, monstrous campaign, authorised at the highest levels of the Syrian government, aimed at crushing any form of dissent within the Syrian population.

‘The cold-blooded killing of thousands of defenceless prisoners, along with the carefully crafted and systematic programmes of psychological and physical torture that are in place inside Saydnaya prison cannot be allowed to continue. Those responsible for these heinous crimes must be brought to justice.’ The report adds to previous evidence of abuses, which could result in Assad and key figures in his regime being hauled before international criminal courts charged with crimes against humanity.

In August 2013, a defector known only as Caesar fled Syria with files containing photographs of the bodies of more than 28,000 victims who had died under torture in prison.

The state of the bodies – which were covered in horrific wounds – and their sheer number revealed the scale of the abuse.

Amnesty’s report was published ahead of talks in Geneva aiming to end the bloody civil war.

Assad’s representatives are preparing to meet officials from Turkey, who have backed the rebels, later this month. Russia and Iran, both Assad’s allies, will join the talks.

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