Russia And UK Tensions Increase: Russia To Expel British Diplomats

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says it is “unacceptable” for the United Kingdom to accuse Russia of the nerve agent attack, and Russia has countered the British rhetoric quickly. In a response to the UK’s expulsion of Russian diplomats over the nerve agent poisoning of a Russian double agent and ex-spy, Moscow will expel British diplomats.

Russia says it will soon expel British diplomats in response to Theresa May’s announcement that 23 “undeclared intelligence officers” posing as Russian diplomats would be ejected from the UK. Ramping up tensions not seen since the Cold War, the UK and Russia are exchanging rhetoric at unprecedented levels.

Lavrov said Russia would first inform the British government first about any retaliatory actions before revealing them to the wider public.

Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, were found unconscious on March 4th in the center of Salisbury and remain critically ill in hospital. May says tests showed a Soviet-era nerve agent known as Novichok was used in the attack, and that Russia was, therefore “highly likely” to be responsible. But not everyone agrees with May’s assessment.  The Irish Times doesn’t feel there’s any way Vladimir Putin could be responsible for the attack.

Theresa May’s first scenario, that the Kremlin was directly involved, seems unlikely. Skripal was in the UK as part of an official spy-swap deal with Russia. The only suggestion of suspicious activities on Skripal’s part has been a report in the Daily Telegraph that he was close to an unnamed person in the organization run by Christopher Steele, who produced the dossier claiming Russia had compromising material on Donald Trump. –The Irish Times

In comments on Thursday morning, the UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson expanded on May’s statement, saying the evidence of Russian guilt was “overwhelming” because only Moscow had access to the poison and also a motive for harming Skripal. But there are holes in that official narrative as well:

Russia immediately needed western financial help to stop Novichok and other chemical and biological agents being exported illegally by criminal elements. Western help arrived eventually but was it too late.

There was money to be made in those days when inflation had reached 2,500 per cent in a single year. Those who became extremely rich by selling natural resources, military equipment or anything they could get their hands on became known as the Russian oligarchs, but not all the oligarchs were Russian. The main production plant for Novichok was in Uzbekistan.

For President Vladimir Putin to have launched such a vicious attack would have been counterproductive as it would jeopardise any spy swaps in the future. –The Irish Times

Ratcheting up the rhetoric further, Johnson told the BBC, “There is something in the kind of smug, sarcastic response that we’re heard from the Russians that to me betokens their fundamental guilt. They want to simultaneously deny it and yet at the same time to glory in it.” Johnson also said the attack was a way for Putin to send a message to anyone considering becoming a Russian defector.

Russia has repeatedly said that the UK is refusing to provide a sample of the nerve agent used in Salisbury, initially saying it would not respond to May’s ultimatum until this condition was met. Johnson said the UK would send a sample of the nerve agent to the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons for an independent assessment

As the rhetoric continues to ramp up and the world stands at the precipice of a third world war over political blame games, it’s important to remember that if these elitists start a war, they won’t be the ones suffering the repercussions.  That will be for the rest of us to endure.

British Secretary of State Refuses to Rule Out A ‘Preemptive Strike’ On North Korea

Boris Johnson, the British secretary of state for foreign affairs, has said the option of military action against North Korea “must theoretically remain on the table” in discussions about the country’s nuclear crisis. Johnson refuses to rule out a preemptive strike.

According to The Independent UK, while speaking at Chatham House, the Foreign Secretary said it was “the duty” of United States President Donald Trump to keep the possibility of a preemptive strike against Kim Jong-un’s regime available at all times. “It is the duty of any president of the US given the threat that his or her country could face from a nuclear-armed North Korea, it is the duty of the President at least to explore those military options and keep them on the table,” he said. “And yet clearly it must remain on the table. The possibility of some kind of military option – there is a spectrum of things that could be done – that possibility must theoretically remain on the table.”

When pressured as to whether or not the United Kingdom would support a preemptive strike against North Korea, Johnson stressed that he preferred the “productive avenue” of talks orchestrated by China. “I don’t think anybody can conceivably want a military solution to this problem, and I know many who have studied the matter find it hard to see how the military solution might play out,” he said. He was also asked if it was now time that the world accepted the hermit nation as among the club of nuclear states. Although it didn’t appear that he answered that question directly, he did make reference to the Cold War.

“The public can be forgiven for genuinely starting to wonder whether the nuclear sword of Damocles is once again held over the head of a trembling human race,” Johnson said. However, the British politician did say the Pyongyang regime’s nuclear ambitions would not make the country safer.

“No one wants any kind of military solution to the problem,” he said. “But Kim and the world need to understand that when the 45th President of the United States contemplates a regime led by a man who not only threatens to reduce New York to ‘ashes’, but who stands on the verge of acquiring the power to make good on his threat, I am afraid that the US president – whoever he or she might be – will have an absolute duty to prepare any option to keep safe not only the American people but all those who have sheltered under the American nuclear umbrella. And I hope Kim will also consider this: that if his objective is to intimidate the US into wholesale withdrawal from East Asia, then it strikes me that his current course might almost be designed to produce the opposite effect.”

Johnson’s comments come on the heels of Donald Trump’s decertification of the 2015 pact with Iran. Trump said that his predecessor Barack Obama was taken advantage of in negotiations, and last week repeated his threat to pull out of the landmark deal entirely. Johnson alleged that the Iran deal proved crucial at a time when the country had been “only months away” from producing a nuclear weapon, which could have triggered an arms race in “one of the most volatile regions of the world.” He said: “Think of the nightmare that deal has avoided.” Johnson also added that Trump had not “junked” the deal and with “determination and courage” the joint comprehensive plan of action deal could be preserved.

Johnson also acknowledged concerns about Iran’s support for Hezbollah, its supply of weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen and interference in Syria. “But that does not mean for one minute that we should write Iran off, or that we should refuse to engage with Iran or that we should show disrespect to its people,” he said. “On the contrary, we should continue to work to demonstrate to that population that they will be better off under this deal and the path of re-engagement that it prescribes.”

Nigel Farage: "This Is The Clearest Proof Yet That The Great Brexit Betrayal Is Under Way"

Authored by Nigel Farage, originally published in the Telegraph

Theresa May is now the EU"s Stepford Wife: subservient and submissive to their every whim

So there we have it. Theresa May does not believe in Brexit. In an interview with Iain Dale on LBC, she completely collapsed, proving incapable of answering the question of how would she vote if there was a referendum now. She simply would not answer if she would support Leave.

Everyone listening to that interview knows that the reality is that May is still a Remainer. I don’t believe it’s possible to carry out this great, historic change against a huge amount of international criticism unless you truly believe in it. Nor, as it happens, does May: in a speech on June 1 she herself said: “To deliver Brexit you have to believe it”. This is the clearest proof yet that the Great Brexit Betrayal is under way.

It is only the latest piece of evidence in a whole procession. On Monday we also found out that Boris Johnson – supposedly Brexit"s loudest cheerleader in the Cabinet – has bottled it. Last month the Foreign Secretary stated in print his demand that the UK must leave the wretched European Court of Justice (ECJ) on Day One of our exit from the EU in March 2019. But then folded like a cheap suit by backing to the hilt Theresa May’s House of Commons Brexit statement – a speech which was itself further confirmation of the great betrayal.

This came to light in her answer to the rapier-like question from Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, in which she said that the UK will still be bound by ECJ rulings during the Brexit transition period, Jacob looked somewhat deflated by this answer. She also would not deny that any new EU laws would be applicable to us, simply trying to ignore the question by saying it was ‘highly unlikely’ this this would occur.

During her parliamentary address, May admitted to MPs that Britain will still be bound by the ECJ’s rulings during the Brexit transition period, currently set to end in 2021. Not only that, but she suggested this country will also have to accept any new EU laws which are dreamt up in Brussels during this time. 

In her world, this arrangement represents part of a “smooth and orderly process of withdrawal, with minimum disruption”.

To me, this demonstrates that May has become the Stepford Wife of the EU – conformist, subservient, submissive. It is woeful stuff.

The only good news of the day is that, at last, some contingency plans have been prepared for a no deal outcome. The only trouble is I simply do not believe that May has the courage to opt for this.

Depressingly, another supposed Brexiteer in the Cabinet, Environment Secretary Michael Gove, joined Johnson, hailing May’s “strong statement” in the Commons. To him, it was as though she had just made some important breakthrough for the good of mankind when all she had done was roll over and surrender for even longer our courts and laws to a distant power.

I realise that Johnson and Gove have assumed this new anything-goes position because they want to publicly support their troubled party leader at a difficult time and, by extension, remain in government for as long as possible. Anything to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of Downing Street is the mantra.

But is there not something utterly shameless about their acquiescence? Indeed, does anyone seriously believe either man actually welcomes our remaining under the ECJ for the foreseeable future?

By putting themselves and, let’s face it, their careers first, Johnson and Gove have made clear that they have no serious interest in carrying out the will of the 17.4 million people who last year voted to leave the EU. To them, the lives of the citizens are secondary.

Boris is right https://t.co/UFK4BqGVW0

— Michael Gove (@michaelgove) October 9, 2017

In backing a proposition they don’t even agree with, they have done little more than make themselves look foolish and mocked the notion that we are an independent state.

What their actions show is that this is fast becoming Brexit in name only and, as I’ve written before, it should concern everybody that our politicians are caving in at the very time they should be standing firm.

What sort of message does it send to potential trading partners in the world that Britain is still bowing and scraping to the institution which in June 2016 we very publicly dumped?

Countries outside the EU will regard us as flaky, a shadow of ourselves, perhaps even untrustworthy. At the same time, some within the EU will smell blood, and will use our confused domestic political situation to punish us as they see fit. It is lose-lose.

With every week that passes we see May and her government dither and delay over one issue or another, and it is this sense that she is being worn down by her opponents in the EU that I find truly alarming. The fight appears to have gone out of her at the time we need it most. I wrote last month of May’s naivety in thinking that the EU even wants to do a deal with Britain. It is blatantly obvious they don’t, and that she should call their bluff and walk away. The time for appeasing Messrs Juncker, Barnier and Verhofstadt is over.

Yesterday, Theresa May became Theresa Maybe in that she left open the door to further concessions. Once again I find myself wondering whether, 16 months after we voted to do so, we have the leaders to complete the job.