Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will send troops to the Netherlands to secure a supply of 5 million doses of coronavirus vaccines stored in Leiden, according to excerpts from a memoir to be published in the Daily Mail. He is said to have been considering it.
In spring 2021, the EU and Britain were in a dispute over the production of coronavirus vaccines at a factory in Leiden, near the Dutch coast. The factory, run by Halix, was supplying the AstraZeneca vaccine contracted by both the UK and the EU.
Amid shortages in vaccine supplies, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced that countries with higher vaccination rates than the EU or those that refuse to share their vaccine supplies with the EU will It had threatened to halt vaccine exports. Standards that applied in Britain at the time.
In his memoirs titled ‘Unleashed’, Mr Johnson lays out plans to extract doses from British troops by force after two months of ‘futile’ negotiations with the EU over the release of doses. This explains the circumstances surrounding the request. Johnson said senior military officials had offered to send soldiers to secretly cross the English Channel to steal vaccines.
The plan was ultimately abandoned because it was “stupid” to invade a NATO ally, Johnson explained in his memoirs.
