All posts tagged: Boris Johnson

How a Second Referendum would reach beyond Brexit

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Prof. Gloria Moss Voices are braying again for a Second Referendum, adding a familiar chorus to our Seasonal celebrations. We take a break from end of year festivities to look at the arguments advanced and look at what these might mean for the worlds of Sport, Education, Politics and the Law. They would make 2019 and the years following like no other, and make it life as we know it today a distant memory. First, let us take a look at the arguments for a Second Referendum (SR). Second Referendum Arguments There are nine prominent voices, five arguing for a rerun on the basis of the difficulties and controversy now facing Parliament and four on the basis of changing circumstances and voters’ ignorance. Problems in Parliament to blame Of the six arguing for a SR on the basis of a messy situation in Parliament, the most recent voice is that of Dominic Grieve, former Attorney General, Conservative MP for Beaconsfield. Writing in the Guardian on 29 December, he wrote of the need to hand the …

Venezuelan elections: chavismo still in power, US still belligerent, media still dishonest

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by Ricardo Vaz from InvestigAction In a climate of dire economic war/crisis and foreign aggression, Venezuelans took to the polls to elect their president and regional legislative councils. Chavismo won big in both contests, with president Maduro securing a second term until 2025. The international reaction from the US and its allies was already pre-scripted, and the dishonest coverage from the mainstream media was also to be expected. We take a look at the election, how the electoral system works, these reactions, and also share some observations after witnessing events on the ground. Incumbent president Nicolás Maduro won in a landslide, taking nearly 68% of the vote, while his closest rival Henry Falcón could only muster 21%. With all the votes tallied, Maduro totalled a little over 6.2M votes. Amidst a devastating economic crisis and increasing imperialist aggression this is a very significant victory, but it nevertheless falls very short of previous totals in chavista victories, and very short of the 10M votes that Maduro “demanded” during the campaign [1]. Falcón had distinguished himself by …

State-funded BBC lets Boris Johnson claim of Russia “stockpiling novichok” go unchallenged while UK govt’s Skripal “drama” continues to defy sense & reason

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The government’s rhetoric is currently so deranged, its conduct by turns so delusional and so furtive, while the basic facts of what happened to the Skripals remain so contradictory, it’s legitimate at this stage to wonder how real any of this “drama” actually is.

Does Skripal poisoning show the UK is just a Punch & Judy sideshow for US interests?

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by Tangible Truth So Rex Tillerson has been sacked. Maybe directly after expressing his support for tough actions on Russia yesterday in response to the UK Skripal poisoning, or maybe “on Friday” – claims are contradictory. Trump has finally spoken out, saying the US will “condemn” Russia if the facts bear out. Which is nicely ambiguous. What is going on? Imminent WW3? So much hysteria, and so much that doesn’t add up. Its a particularly strange situation. The sane minority have been left agog at the huge influx of renewed and reinvented Russian hate in the UK over the last few days. Seemingly out of nowhere, this tidal wave of bile has struck – leaving us stunned, hearts in mouths – echoing, as it does, the lead up to Iraq, Libya and Syria…. The clock is ticking on Theresa May’s “ultimatum to Putin”, a 24hr deadline for a Russian “credible response” to the alleged Salisbury-poisoning using an alleged military-grade nerve agent. Russia have responded, nay, demanded! says the Guardian, that we act in “in accordance …

Five days after Putin’s warning about the dangers of western warmongering & this is where we are

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Less than 24 hours after Sergei Skripal and his daughter, have allegedly been found in a collapsed state on a park bench in Salisbury, with no official claims of foul play and no announcement of likely cause, UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is already announcing what he plans to do “If things turn out to be, as many members on both sides of the House suspect they are.”

Panic of Boris Johnson in Moscow – Agony of Rotting Empire

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by Andre Vltchek It has been all very ugly, aggressive and often distinctly vulgar: the way the British Foreign Secretary has behaved before and during his official visit to Moscow. Mr. Johnson described Russia as “closed, nasty, militaristic and anti-democratic” concluding that it could not be “business as usual”. He did not define what the UK has become, and the Russian hosts were too polite to explain. The “business as usual” it was not. During the last few weeks, the behavior patterns of both the UK and US have began increasingly to resemble those of the badly brought up leadership of the provincial Italian mafia: “You do as we tell you, or we’ll poke out your eyes… or break your leg… or perhaps we’ll kidnap your daughter”. It appears that there is absolutely no shame left in Washington, in London, and in several other ‘provincial capitals’ of the Empire. Insults are piling on insults and then shot to all corners of the globe. Lies are being spread barefacedly, and bizarre deceptions and fabrications have been …

West is Gunning for Russian Media Ban

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by Finian Cunningham, via Strategic Culture It would be monumental, but Western states seem to be moving, ineluctably, towards banning Russian news media channels from satellite platforms and the internet. That outcome – albeit with enormous ethical and political implications – seems to be a logical conclusion of the increasingly frenzied transatlantic campaign to demonize Russia. Washington, London and Paris appear to be coordinating an unprecedented media onslaught that is vilifying Russia for almost every conceivable malfeasance, from alleged war crimes in Syria to threatening the security of Europe, to shooting down civilian airliners, to subverting American presidential elections. And that’s only a sample. British foreign secretary Boris Johnson declared this week that Russia is in danger of becoming a «pariah state». Ironically, that fate has less to do with Russia’s actual conduct and more to do with the desired objective driving Western policy towards Moscow – to isolate and portray Russia as an international reprobate. If Russia can be sufficiently demonized in the eyes of the Western public by their governments, then the political context is …

The Brilliant Boris Johnson Explains Syria Conflict in Four Short Points

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by Dean Parker from Russia Insider Nobody does the UN, or ziplines, quite like Boris Johnson. He didn’t quite get to speak at the actual Security Council meeting on Syria (guess Britannia no longer “rules the waves“), but he did find some reporters in the hallway to speak to, which technically makes it “Johnson’s speech at the UN”. He told them: What is absolutely clear is that the Russians bear the moral responsibility for what is taking place,” “You have got aid convoys with UN markings on them being targeted, you have got medical facilities being blown up. “This is not a civil war, this is a proxy war conducted by puppeteers and those puppeteers are principally in the Kremlin.” “They have an opportunity to bring an end to this. They could tell the Assad regime not to fly, not to bomb, to engage with the whole negotiation.” “Instead, I’m afraid you’re seeing a cynical and barbaric protraction of violence and it is tragic.” Leave it to Boris to cut through the clutter and point …

Menwith Menace: Britain’s Complicity In Saudi Arabia’s Terror Campaign Against Yemen

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from Media Lens The ‘mainstream’ Western media is, almost by definition, the last place to consult for honest reporting of Western crimes. Consider the appalling case of Yemen which is consumed by war and an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe. Since March 2015, a ‘coalition’ of Sunni Arab states led by Saudi Arabia, and supported by the US, Britain and France, has been dropping bombs on neighbouring Yemen. The scale of the bombing is indicated in a recent article by Felicity Arbuthnot – in one year, 330,000 homes, 648 mosques, 630 schools and institutes, and 250 health facilities were destroyed or damaged. The stated aim of Saudi Arabia’s devastating assault on Yemen is to reinstate the Yemeni president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, and to hold back Houthi rebels who are allied with the former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. The Saudis assert that the Houthis, who control Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, are ‘proxies’ for Iran: always a convenient propaganda claim to elicit Western backing and ‘justify’ intervention. Philip Hammond, who was UK defence secretary when the Saudi bombing began in …

A letter to Boris

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by Paul Robinson, Irrussianality, July 16, 2016 Dear Boris, Our paths have crossed intermittently over the past four decades, at school and university, and then when you were editor of The Spectator. Congratulations on becoming Britain’s Foreign Secretary! As Russia is my area of specialization, I hope that you won’t consider it presumptuous of me to offer you some advice on Anglo-Russian relations. Consult people other than the usual Russian ‘experts’. I know from previous encounters that you have an open mind. Consult widely. People like Bill Browder, Ed Lucas, Peter Pomerantsev, and Luke Harding dominate the discourse about Russia in the UK, but they present a very one sided, and rather exaggerated, view of Russia. Read instead what people such as Richard Sakwa and Mary Dejevsky are saying. They are far from being ‘Kremlin stooges’, and they will provide you with a far more nuanced picture. Remember that Russia is more than Vladimir Putin. There is a tendency to personify our issues with Russia, to make it out that everything we dislike is the …