Boris Johnson: The True Scandal

By TruePublica Editor: Within twelve hours of Boris Johnson’s woeful performance at the dispatch box on Monday (31st Jan), a Savanta ComRes poll showed that about two-thirds of people do not trust him (68 per cent), do not accept his apology (65 per cent) and even more want him to resign (69 per cent). The general public thinks he doesn’t care about the hurt or damage to public safety (66 per cent) Johnson has caused and now, 80 per cent want the full unredacted report by Sue Gray. To do anything less would damage the Conservative party even more than this pitiful and unedifying episode has done already. But there’s more to this scandal than partying, breaking the law and sneering at us.

 

The lies keep coming

It’s not just the lying – now they have become more fantastical. On the same day as Johnson is being grilled in The Commons, he attempts to deflect the constant flack about his lying by lying even more. He said – “We have been cutting crime by 14 per cent.” Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper corrected this by tweeting – “On Thursday, the Office of National Statistics said there has been a 14 per cent increase in total crime driven by a 47 per cent increase in fraud & computer misuse.” Prosecutions have also fallen to a record low 6 per cent.”

Johnson then decided to stoop to even lower levels of narrative invention by accusing Keir Starmer of not prosecuting Jimmy Saville.

The chief political correspondent at inews said – “Extraordinary low blow at Keir Starmer from Johnson, giving Parliamentary credence to the false online smear about Starmer not prosecuting Jimmy Savile. It’s just not true. And surely the PM knows it?”

Former Chief Prosecutor, Nazir Afzal angrily spat out that any “Reference to Jimmy Savile by Boris Johnson was a disgrace to Parliament and the office of Prime Minister. IT’S NOT TRUE I was there and Keir Starmer had nothing to do with the decisions taken. On the contrary, He supported me in bringing 100s of child sex abusers to justice.”

The lies kept coming and we’ve heard them all so many times we barely recognise them. Fastest growing economy in the G7, vaccine programme not possible as a member of the EU and so on. Johnson’s inability is matched by his deceitfulness and it is nothing less than corrosive to democracy.

 

Partygate and Russiagate

Breaching lockdown rules and partying through one of the darkest moments in British history is shameful. It smells of the type of contempt they have for anyone but themselves. But what really stinks as Boris Johnson ducks the growing political firing squad, is that he heads off to apparently stop Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine. And what is Putin going to say to a man on his payroll?

The accusation that a quarter of Johnson’s cabinet took dark money donations from Russian oligarchs has not been challenged. It appears that £millions has been thrown into Tory coffers since Johnson was elected, let alone prior to that. To name just two – Dominic Raab and Rishi Sunak, but it doesn’t end there.

One investigation publicly accuses senior Tories in no uncertain terms.

 

“Tycoons and benefactors are hurling money at the Conservatives at an astonishing rate as ordinary Brits face painful Universal Credit cuts, National Insurance hikes and soaring energy bills. In the first six months of 2020 donations hit £57,700 a day – £2,400 an hour. Donations total £74m since Mr Johnson took office in 2019.”

 

What do the Tories think the Russians want back for their investment?

There are 700 Russian multi-millionaires who have been given fast-track visas to live in Britain. Accusations of dark-money operations funded by Russians are so commonplace that even a think tank close to the Biden administration, warned only last week that “stronger action against money laundering was required from the UK, which had become a main hub for Russian oligarchs and their wealth.”

We should not forget that it was only nine months ago that the integrated review of security, defence and foreign policy set out plans to boost spending on Britain’s offensive cyber warfare capability to combat Moscow. It branded Putin’s regime as a ‘hostile state’ towards Britain. That document stated unequivocally that Russia represented the “biggest state-based threat” Britain now has.

And yet – another cover-up took place – The Russia Report. The main thrust of that report was this – and I quote – “the security services actively avoided looking for evidence.”

That whitewash wasn’t the only one. For anyone unfamiliar with the work of Dame Cressida Dick – she strung out the non-investigation into the Leave campaigns for 18 months. In that example, we saw many allegations of unlawful campaigning and funding – much of it connected to Russian dark money. So much so, the London School of Economics and Kings College London published a report that said that the Brexit result should have been deemed invalid. Indeed they confirmed that – “Four separate reports have fatally undermined the Brexit vote. They show how Russia used the Leave campaigns, official and unofficial, to sway the referendum.”

The electrical commission dished out maximum fines and referred the matter to the Met Police – who investigated and then dropped it because just like partygate, where the Met refused to investigate initially – somehow there was ‘insufficient evidence’.

At the heart of all this is Boris Johnson.

 

Corruption at the heart of Government

Sussex University’s Centre for the Study Corruption has said in a report published recently that – “Boris Johnson’s administration is more corrupt than any UK government since the Second World War. There has been an absolute failure of integrity at No 10 which has consequences for democracy”. Robert Barrington, the Professor at the Centre also said that there were serious consequences for “Britain’s global influence.”

Headlines like these don’t go unnoticed internationally, especially when there are so many of them.

France24: Johnson’s government is mired in corruption scandals, but do Britons care?”

NYT: Corruption Watchdog Has Boris Johnson Retreating, Again.

Now that we know Tory whips are blackmailing colleagues into supporting a sleaze ridden PM, we know corruption is at the very beating heart of this government. It is when the general consensus in the media sees illegal lobbying and bribery in action and leads with – “Corruption in Britain has reached new heights under Boris Johnson’s government.”

It definitely has when people like Martin Fletcher – Mail on Sunday, Telegraph, and Times journalist says – “For the first time in my life, I find myself wondering whether I live in a corrupt country of the sort that Britain once regarded with pity and disdain.” And that is from someone who has been writing about politics for over 40 years.

 

UK plc’s reputation

Joanna Cherry, MP and Queen’s Council makes the right observation when she says – “It’s not news to most of us that  Boris Johnson is a liar. That was known before he became PM and underlined thereafter during the unlawful prorogation. The real issue is what it says about British politics that he became PM and remains in office.”

This is where we are in Britain right now. A British Prime Minister, mired in scandal, being investigated by the Police, with multiple accusations of corruption and colluding with a foreign power defined by the security services as an enemy of the state. He is branded a liar not just to parliament but to the Queen. He is as divisive to British society as any PM, is a known racist, philanderer and has loyalties to no one but himself. And yet – the Conservatives cannot decide if he’s their man to lead them to the next election.

 

The True Scandal

For Tory MPs, defending Boris Johnson, with this record is not just indefensible – it shows tacit support for corruption at the heart of their own government. They are now supporting the view that the rule of law does not matter and shows that colluding with a hostile foreign state to remain in power is acceptable. None of it is and Tory MPs who support johnson should hang their heads in shame.

And when this fiasco comes to an end you can imagine what replies a Labour PM will throw at them for years at the dispatch box – “I do not need any lessons from the party opposite who were mired in corruption scandals, whose own PM was sacked and who dragged this country’s reputation and the mother of all parliaments into the gutter…”

The true scandal is the scale of damage being done – and that in nothing more than the thirst for power, many Tory MPs have decided it’s OK.

 

 

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