The recent foreign policy scandals involving the head of the British Foreign Ministry, Boris Johnson, just like a string of those that have been trailing behind him over the years, suggest that the sitting leadership of the kingdom have had a hard time finding a worthy candidate to properly represent this formerly respected country in the international arena.
In all likelihood, the highbrowness of the British political elites has become a feature of the past, since it’s now apparently okay to appoint minor drug addicts to the highest positions of the nation, especially with a cross-party group of British parliamentarians presenting a draft on the change of drug policies last September, which would provide UK citizens with an excuse to use of cannabis for “medical purposes”.
As for Boris’s addiction to alcohol, such “drawbacks” do not jeopardize one’s chances of getting appointed to her Majesty’s government. Especially so because when Johnson’s worship of Bacchus has been described by The Independent, who would report him as saying: “I mean, I can drink an awful lot at lunch and then write very fluently and fast. But if I drink at dinner, it just peters off … “
Despite his claim to be able to remain eloquent after a “liquid lunch,” Johnson came under fire five years ago for describing his 250,000 pounds salary for his Daily Telegraph columnist side job as mere “chicken feed”.
Therefore, one shouldn’t be surprised both by the fancy haircut Boris is known for wearing nor the fancy statements he’s making.
Boris Johnson holds dual nationalities as he was born in New York in 1964, where his parents registered the birth with the American authorities and the British consulate. Yet, Boris announced that he was planning to renounce his US citizenship to reinforce his commitment to Britain.
Boris Johnson loves publicity and writing, especially while being intoxicated. According to official data, Boris Johnson gets 275,000 pounds a year for writing a weekly column in the daily Telegraph newspaper.
In an interview with the BBC on April 16, the then Mayor of London accused President Barack Obama of hypocrisy, noting it would seem rather strange that Washington would lecture UK authorities on how they should abandon sovereignty, while at the very same time Washington hasn’t passed any law on the recognition of the International Criminal Court.
Johnson has been critical of Obama on numerous occasions, including harsh statements against him provoked by Obama’s “outrageous” criticism of the UK Brexit movement. The sitting UK Foreign Minister has been fairly vocal in criticizing traditional British values as well, criticizing the House of Lords by saying: There are a great many of these geezers and women who do not actually do anything much at all They take the money -. And they do not do much. “
And the list goes on, since Johnson has repeatedly insulted Hillary Clinton, with his first offense occurring back in 2007, when in one of his columns he penned about Hillary Clinton’s first presidential election bid, describing the potential future American leader this way: “She’s got dyed blonde hair and pouty lips, and a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital.” The European Union failed to escape Johnson’s criticism as well, since last May he announced that European policies led to the war in Ukraine.
As for criticism of Putin, he would write in his column for the Daily Telegraph:
If Putin’s troops have helped winkle the maniacs from Palmyra, then (it pains me to admit) that is very much to the credit of the Russians. They have made the west look relatively ineffective, and so now is the time for us to make amends, and to play to our strength
Johnson wrote that while the Damascus regime itself was “evil”, “the victory of Assad is a victory for archaeology, a victory for all those who care about the ancient monuments of one of the most amazing cultural sites on Earth “He added:.” It is alas very hard to claim that the success of the Assad forces is a result of any particular British, or indeed, western policy. We rightly loathe his regime and what. it stands for, and for the last few years we have been engaged in an entirely honourable mission to build an opposition to Assad that was not composed simply of Daesh That effort has not worked, since Putin, with a ruthless clarity, has come to the defence of his client and helped to turn the tide.”
On his attitude towards the Syrian conflict and the desire to team up with Putin and Assad in joint military action in Syria against ISIS he wrote to the Daily Telegraph:
Let’s deal with the Devil: we should work with Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad in Syria. There is Assad, and his army; and the recent signs are that they are making some progress Thanks at least partly to Russian air strikes, it looks as if the regime is taking back large parts of Homs Is that a bad thing..? I do not think so. This is the time to set aside our Cold War mindset It is just not true that whatever is good for Putin must automatically be bad for the West We both have a clear and concrete objective -.. To remove the threat from Isil. Everything else is secondary.
Of course, against this background, the criticism Johnson voiced lately of the ongoing Aleppo assault, and his urge to the UK citizens to hold demonstrations in front of the Russian Embassy in London look fairly strange and contradictory. It seems that the head of the British Foreign Office was unable to put aside his Cold War mentality only because his “liquid lunch” helped him forget about the Vienna Convention and the obligation of the UK to be responsible for the security of diplomatic missions on its territory.
Johnson’s statement has been commented on just the other day by the former head of UK foreign intelligence, John Sawers, who expressed his concern that Johnson has directly threatened the lives of British diplomats: “We all remember what happened to our embassy in Iran three or four years ago. I do not think that this could happen in Moscow, but we need to be careful and think about the consequences of what say.”
However, it seems that thinking before saying or writing anything is just not Johnson’s “thing.” But it seems that Johnson can be pretty symptomatic overall of what is really happening in the UK today.
Jean Périer is an independent researcher and analyst and a renowned expert on the Near and Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
