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Boris
Johnson made Foreign Secretary to give Theresa May 'someone to blame'
in Brexit talks, says Yvette Cooper
Former
Labour Cabinet minister claims former London Mayor has been set up as
a scapegoat
Andy McSmith
Yvette Cooper, the
former Labour Cabinet minister, has suggested that Boris Johnson has
been sent to the Foreign Office so that Theresa May will have
“someone to blame” if the Brexit negotiations hit the rocks.
That is one
explanation for the new Prime Minister’s decision to hand this
sensitive job to such an unsafe choice.
Of Johnson’s many
indiscretions, the worst arguably, was deliberate and gratuitous.
When The Spectator ran a competition inviting readers to write poems
insulting Turkey’s President Recip Erdogan, the then Mayor of
London could not resist submitting a contribution which included a
made up word beginning with ‘w’ that rhymed with the Turkish
capital, Ankara.
Boris Johnson says
Brexit vote does not mean leaving Europe 'in any sense'
On other occasions,
Johnson has insulted Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump,
George W. Bush, Nicola Sturgeon, Papua New Guinea, black inhabitants
of the Commonwealth, and Liverpool. During the referendum, he drew a
parallel between EU politicians with ambitions to unite Europe with
Adolf Hitler.
In a Facebook post
just before Johnson’s appointment, the vice president of the
European Commission, Frans Timmermans, complained: “To accuse
people who believe in (the EU) of trying to finish where Hitler left
off is, to say the least, a bit rich… How did hatred become an
integral part of all this? Why is it necessary?”
The German foreign
minister, Franz Walter Steinmeier, did not mention Johnson by name
but it was clear enough who he had in mind when he expressed sympathy
for the misled British voter. He said: "People are experiencing
a rude awakening after irresponsible politicians first lured the
country into a Brexit to then, once the decision was made, bolt and
not take responsibility. Instead they went to play cricket. To be
honest, I find this outrageous but it's not just bitter for Great
Britain. It's also bitter for the European Union.”
France’s foreign
secretary, Jean-Marc Ayrault,was equally scathing. Asked about
Johnson's appointment, he said: “You know very well what his style
and methods are. During the campaign, you know he told a lot of lies
to the British people.”
The former Swedish
prime minister Carl Bildt tweeted: “I wish it was a joke, but I
fear it isn’t.”
On other hand, the
former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott tweeted: “Good to see
@BorisJohnson as the new UK foreign secretary. He's a good friend of
Australia.”
And official
reaction from the USA was restrained, considering that Johnson has in
the past described Barack Obama as ‘half Kenyan’, Hillary Clinton
as having “a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental
hospital”, Donald Trump of showing “stupifying ignorance",
and George W. Bush as “a cross-eyed Texan warmonger, unelected,
inarticulate, who epitomizes the arrogance of American foreign
policy.”
The spokesman for
the US State department, Mark Toner, chuckled when asked about
Johnson’s appointment, but recovered his self control to say: “We
look forward to engaging with Boris Johnson as the new foreign
secretary. This is something, frankly, a relationship that goes
beyond personalities."
However, Wikileaks
once provided an insight into what US diplomats actually think of
Johnson, by leaking a cable reacting to his election as Mayor of
London: “Johnson is best known as a mistake-prone former journalist
twice exposed for committing adultery, now a Conservative MP.
“Johnson is also
well known for apologizing: to the people of Liverpool for accusing
them of mawkish sentimentality following the beheading of a resident
of the city in Iraq; to the people of Portsmouth after describing the
town as ‘too full of drugs, (and) obesity’; to the people of
Papua New Guinea for associating them ‘with orgies of cannibalism
and chief-killing,’ and to the people of Africa after remarking on
their ‘watermelon smiles’.
Boris Johnson 'lied
to the British people' and must be a credible Foreign Secretary, says
French counterpart
Why is everyone so
upset about Boris Johnson? He joins a proud British tradition and
will charm the world
David Lammy tweet
sums up reaction to Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary: 'God help us'
“He was also
sacked as a member of the Shadow Cabinet for lying about an
extra-marital affair.”
Perhaps the most
scathing verdict ever passed on Boris Johnson was in a tirade written
three months ago by a fellow Tory and journalist colleague, Matthew
Parris, who accused him of incompetence, vacuity, cynicism,
administrative sloth, a careless disregard for truth, sexual
impropriety and "casual dishonesty, the cruelty, the betrayal;
and, beneath the betrayal, the emptiness of real ambition: the
ambition to do anything useful with office once it is attained.”
If Yvette Cooper is
right that Johnson has been set up by Theresa May to be the scapegoat
when Brexit negotiations go wrong, then Johnson’s ‘administrative
sloth’ and his alleged lack of ‘ambition to do anything useful’
may be just what the new Prime Minister wants.
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