LONDON – Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he plans to raid a Dutch factory in March 2021 to secure 5 million coronavirus vaccines that the European Union has threatened to ban exports to Britain. He said he had given orders to military leaders.
Mr Johnson said Lieutenant General Doug Chalmers, Britain’s deputy chief of defense staff at the time, told him he could use small boats to cross the English Channel and sail through canals in the Netherlands for a raid, but diplomacy prevented him from doing so. He said he had warned of the negative consequences.
Johnson said Lt. Gen. Chalmers, now retired from the military, said it was impossible to carry out his mission without being detected, and that “if we were to be detected, we would have to explain why we were effectively invading.” It won’t happen,” he said. It is a long-time NATO ally. ”
“I secretly agreed with what everyone was thinking, but I didn’t want to say it out loud, which was that everything was wrong,” Johnson said in an excerpt of his memoir published in Saturday’s Daily Mail. ” he said.
Neither the Ministry of Defence, nor General Chalmers, who currently chairs the government’s committee on standards of public life, had any immediate comment on Mr Johnson’s explanation.
The disputed coronavirus vaccine was developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, but the doses were manufactured by subcontractors in the Netherlands and Britain.
In March 2021, the vaccine was widely used in the UK, but doses produced at a factory in the Netherlands were still awaiting EU approval.
Britain and the EU both had vaccine deals with AstraZeneca, but the EU sought to hold the finished vaccine at a factory in the Netherlands for future use there.
Mr Johnson was elected in December 2019 on a promise to conclude protracted Brexit negotiations, but EU officials say he is acting under pressure from French President Emmanuel Macron. showed.
“After two months of fruitless negotiations, we have come to the conclusion that the EU is treating us with malice and spite… because we were vaccinating our people much faster than our own people,” he said. said Johnson. He will be appointed in 2022 following scandals such as violations of lockdown rules due to the new coronavirus infection. Reuters
