There has been remarkably little media commentary on the effect of the UK leaving the EU Common Foreign Policy, even though this is a major aim of Johnson, Gove and the Tory Brexiteers. The media appear not to have noticed the existence of the Common Foreign Policy. We saw perhaps the first public glimpse of the UK’s new foreign policy yesterday when Boris Johnson breached the EU Common Foreign Policy to join Donald Trump in denouncing the Iran nuclear treaty. As the UK has not actually left the EU yet, that was bad faith and an illegal act against an EU treaty obligation, but following the law is evidently of no concern whatsoever to Johnson.
There could not have been a more apt symbolism than the fact that on the day of the Supreme Court judgement that he had acted unlawfully in proroguing parliament, Boris Johnson’s major public engagement was a press conference sitting alongside Donald Trump. That is the future of the Tory version of Brexit. Other Lexit options are theoretically available, but this is what the UK’s current government intends you to get.
Of recent years EU foreign policy has been fairly characterised as neo-con, though it has rowed back somewhat from the high water mark of endorsement of the destruction of Libya. But freed from common positions on Iran, Russia, Syria and issues such as climate change, we are going to see a much more full-on neo-con approach from the UK – and one which, as now over Iran, is openly allied with the USA and against Europe. Some of the things Johnson said about the Iran nuclear deal on Monday in New York were jaw-dropping even by Johnson’s standards. “I think there’s one guy who can do a better deal and one guy who understands how to get a difficult partner like Iran over the line and that is the president of the United States,” is but one example.
My reading of Trump is that he is as contemptuous of brown-nosers as he is of opponents, but let that play out. What is plain is that, if Johnson survives as PM and Brexit goes through, Trump is going to have an unquestioning acolyte in Johnson. As I have previously reported, this is crucially going to extend to UK support for Trump’s Israel policy. It will very probably lead to UK support for Israeli annexations in the Jordan Valley – which EU Common Foreign Policy would not allow – and Johnson plans an announcement before Christmas on the moving of the UK Embassy to Jerusalem.
Johnson also blamed Iran for direct involvement in the attacks on the Saudi oil facilities at Khurais and Abqaiq. This is far from proven, and I am utterly confused by the narrative the western government and media complex has been pumping out on the event. We have been treated to an update of the Singapore Gun Myth. My generation and older were brought up to believe that Singapore had fallen in World War 2 because the guns were all fixed pointing out to sea and the attack came by land. In fact this was largely untrue and in any event not the main problem, which was appalling generalship and resulting rock-bottom morale. We are now nonsensically told that all of Saudi Arabia’s air defences only point South towards Yemen and therefore missiles from Iran crept in the side.
This is absolutely untrue. Saudi Arabia’s entire weapons capacity is massively focused on Iran, as are the manifold detection devices of the numerous US bases. Besides modern air defence systems are omnidirectional. The Patriot missile defence system is not the best in the world, though it is the most expensive; however you cannot just creep up behind it and shout “boo!” Not even the Saudis would pay billions of dollars for that.
Nor is it true that the Patriot system cannot detect cruise missiles. While it may have been designed with long range ballistic missiles in mind, it was only ever intended to intercept them in the last phase of their approach and cannot detect at more than 70km away. Saudi Arabia spent $1.57 billion dollars on PAC3 missiles: “A new Patriot advanced capability (PAC-3) missile has increased effectiveness against tactical ballistic and cruise missiles through the use of advanced hit-to-kill technology. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor, with Raytheon the systems integrator. The PAC-3 has a Ka-band millimetre wave seeker developed by Boeing.”
That drones evaded the defences seems possible. That is a fascinating demonstration of the new possibilities in assymetric warfare. As we witnessed in Gatwick, even entirely non-existent drones can be very effective. That cruise missiles were involved seems unlikely unless a very large number were launched – there has been no claim of any intercepts. The cruise missile claim is of course the grounds for the claim of Iranian involvement. That any substantial number of cruise missiles were launched from Iran into Saudi Arabia and none of them were picked up by the defences of the numerous warships in the Gulf, by the US military bases or by the Saudi air defences is so improbable as to be utter nonsense.
Any event which leads to a massive but very temporary spike in the oil price will have potential beneficiaries aside from where we are being told to look. On present public knowledge, however, a Houthi attack with drones seems the most probable explanation, as indeed the Houthis have claimed. Given the appalling bombardment from the air of Houthi civilians, I would regard such an attack as entirely justified. The addition of cruise missiles from Iran to the story seems to me wildly improbable but an entirely predictable propaganda ploy. It does however give us a glimpse of what the future of Trump/Johnson foreign policy could hold for the UK.
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Loony
September 26, 2019 at 14:40
“This would be the same doctrine that compels the NHS to invite transgender, but biological men to attend cervical cancer screening tests. Naturally this increases demand for NHS services and results in delays to women receiving cancer screening tests.”
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Complete bullshit Loony and I’m sure you know it!
The Sun ran a similar and in my view, deliberately misleading story not long ago. A good example of Fake News.
Now Loony you wouldn’t spread fake news would you?
But I am surprised you read the Sun.
I suppose if you get your information from the Sun then you may be forced to assume that everyone does. Maybe like if you are an alcoholic you naturally assume that everyone else would a drink.
I really don’t know. However I assume that an appropriate source for determining NHS policy would be the NHS – I apologise if relying on the NHS for information on the NHS appears somewhat circular – but I just don’t know any better.
http://www.screeningforlife.wales.nhs.uk/sitesplus/documents/1129/Trans%20screening%20v3%20-%20no%20lines.pdf
But you haven’t answered the specific part of your criticism, have you?
L: “Naturally this increases demand for NHS services and results in delays to women receiving cancer screening tests.”
Prove it.
Alternatively, do what right-wingers like you always do – attack the person you’re corresponding with on a personal basis (Sun-reader, alcoholic etc.), and then blow smoke and pretend you’re being oh-so-clever for your imagined right-wing audience.
Somehow, I doubt you’ll prove this has caused actual harm to women receiving delayed results, but will instead feign concern that it _might_ happen. Your lack of concern for genuine victims of NHS under-performance due to cutbacks and privitisation is noted.
(Also noted, you’re in bed with a self-proclaimed Marxist who’s equally bigoted against trans people. Comfy there?)
Btw – did you actually bother reading the NHS reference you provided? Thought not. It doesn’t support your supposed case of political correctness wasting money through unnecessary tests at all.
You’re not just unpleasant and bigoted, Loony. You’re damned lazy with it.
PM acted unlawfully – that is obvious. 11-0 – incredible. Therefore remainers expected that he would return to the House as a wounded beast for them to bait and slaughter, but he was no lame victim, he worked up his animal spirits, after Cox’s warm up act and put up a fight. Crude yes but he was not the only one who was crude and he was fighting for his survival. He won that fight (even if he has lost every vote). The response to try and frame the context as being about the language is essentially saying “look away and don’t support this it’s bad and wrong.” That is not going to work. Those who support Brexit know what he is up against and want a fighter not middle management. If the Conservative party are uncomfortable with him as leader they can remove him as leader but retain him as PM. Churchill was PM without being leader. As PM Boris has a task to do and I suspect he is going to do it. Of course if the majority in the House continue refuse to vote no confidence then Boris has to work as best as he can. So in such circumstances you can expect quite a bit of bad language and unusual strategies. Maybe Corbyn secretly also sees Boris as a Churchill type figure i.e. let him win the unusual single issue fight and then be replaced by a Labour administration who have their own ideas about what to do out of Europe. Who knows…
UK, as we know, is not in the Euro and not in Schengen. We are not leaving; the EU left us when it set up the Euro. It is a shame that everyone can’t recognise this and work towards a positive realignment of our relationship with France and Germany and the other EU states, and everyone de-escalate their emotional entanglement with the issue.
fwl
I bet you could have said that a wee bit better..without mentioning the War Criminal Churchill so often..
Things may well be left in the past as We sing ( Flower of Scotland ) But sometimes we Should not forget.. Especially Now.. with all the Right Wing Nutters Fomenting Hatred.. Like Gove’s Scandalous accusations Against the SNP Yesterday ..Nasty, Nasty Stuff.
I read David Lough’s objective financial biography of Churchill No More Champagne: Churchill and his Money. I’ve not read such a biography before and seeing a person’s actions in to the context of their dire personal financial circumstances is reductionist, but fascinating and revealing. One thing that comes across is that WC was a reckless gambler who made many bad decisions was always in dire financial circumstances and motivated by the need to get out of hock, but never for long. How he does that is quite extraordinary but save for the relentless drive not exactly admirable. That drive though was something else and puts me in mind of say Lucien Freud. So if people say Boris is no WC I am not sure how to take that.
Would be interesting to read Trump’s financial biography one day.
fwl
Johnson is a mouthy liar. To be a fighter you have to believe in your thesis, but Cameron has told us he only believes in his own career progression. All he’s doing is walking a dog that needs walking. That dog is Trump’s poodle, He is an ex-US citizen. He doesn’t serve the interests of the UK because he is playing to a crude gallery of racist nationalists, who have no interest in the main benefit of leaving the EU, that our government can no longer plot the overthrow of sovereign nations in the back rooms of the EU.
When the catastrophe of hard brexit happens Johnson will blame the racist nationalists.
he hasn’t got the slightest intention of taking personal responsibility for the crash of the pound, or anything else. that’s why the Judiciary took the responsibility on themselves to declare him to be a criminal.
Not because of what he did , but because he won’t take responsibility for what he did.
Like a cider drinker driver who is unable to work out how to use his gearstick.
Johnson hasn’t the slightest idea what he wants to with his power, except to please the Tory right wing who voted him in. Not vacuous, vacant. Not recidivist, reckless, Not unpleasant, just utterly clueless.
Maybe already lost 90% of his mind to cocaine.
Patrick Cockburn in the independent, has a piece that explains how things will never be the same again, after the attack on the oil fields in SA. The US and Israel had overwhelming military power, technology and air superiority. Now, however, poor countries with cheap drones can hit back. You would have thought that these murderous thugs would now back off and end the wars, in Yemen and the let the prison camp, that is Gaza, breath and drink clean water…..but no, they will carry on till we are all enveloped in their folly.
Wikikettle
They are much cleverer than that. While you are wringing your hands with events and consequences, they are twiddling their thumbs waiting for the media to orchestrate the false flag of a fake event.
Fortunately we seem to have a Potus who realises that he is constantly being played, and he doesn’t react to the game they are playing. OK, he had a few emotive moments earlier on in his presidency but now he understands their game. He can’t drain the swamp, but at least he’s learnt to submerge himself like a hippo when the big game guns are all pointing at him.
There is one thing, and only one thing that may save us from the worst excesses of Johnson, and that is the man himself. His self congratulatory manner and inability to cease bragging has done for him already and is doing for him again. He was unable to keep his mouth closed about the prorogation plan, it was being talked about on social media and other blogs long before it became a news item or indeed came to fruition. Lots of time for the opposition to build their case, then win it – eventually.
Now he’s done the same again. Time and time again he, and others, have cryptically said they would ‘respect the law’ but still have us out of the EU on 31st Oct. Today I read that the plan could either be an ‘Order of Council’ to delay the Benn Act until after 31st Oct or, the one which I actually believe to be the case, to rely on EU law to trump the Benn Act (being that it is EU law and has supremacy) as the date has been set at EU level.
They really can’t hold their water can they? If I know about this, then every single opposition party MP and their dog knows about it now too! As with the prorogation they couldn’t keep from patting themselves on the back, rather prematurely, and this led to the Supreme Court’s decision just this week. If they’d managed to keep their mouths shut they might just have gotten away with it too! (if it hadn’t been for those meddling kids lol!)
Now that they blew the plan there’s plenty of time for opposition groups to do something. This says everything you need to know about Johnson and ERG maniac JRM. They think they’re on some kind of school outing and can’t help whispering about their latest wheezes. This stupidity may in fact save us.
Let’s hope so anyway, if Boris even attempts this it WILL result in court AGAIN and potentially his impeachment. You can’t continuously ride roughshod over parliament and expect to get away with it. In any event, we will have an election before the year is out and Boris may yet have the shortest tenure of any PM (I think?)
He once said that underneath the bumbling fool lurked an actual bumbling fool, he wasn’t joking, he’s an imposter, a fool, a bad joke being played on us. People think he has a cunning plan, like most politicians he has no cunning plan, but unlike most he has nothing else to offer either…
Modi is being wooed by US. India would be better served by making peace with its neighbours China and Pakistan. All this expenditure in weapons will come to naught. Drones and cruise missiles, previously only the powerfull’s preserve have come back to haunt.
@ Wikikettle September 27, 2019 at 04:08
I suspect a hidden Middle East hand behind Modi’s Jammu/Kashmir move. Same MO; just do it – the dogs may bark, but the caravan moves on.
Since when have the powerful been interested in peace? And it fits the fabricated ‘Clash of Civilisations’.
Dominic Cummings should blame the ERG for blocking the May withdrawal agreement.
The delays were caused by him and his colleagues. Johnson cannot shelter under Mrs May’s government’s Queen’s Speech because his group continually sabotaged Mrs May and forced her to resign.
This is another reason why the Queen should not have agreed to make Johnson PM.
He cannot use an agenda he opposed as a basis for government. His idiot advisor doesn’t even have the intellect to understand this fundamental contradiction in terms.
They voted against Brexit.
Hard Brexit is a stupid concept. Sooner or later some negotiations have to be carried out because we suddenly can’t stop trading with Europe and survive for long. But this temporary state is being used by the right to cause a realignment with the US by the Atlanticists. Let those so called left wing supporters of Brexit take this in and understand what they have really voted for.
SA
You’re right. Usukis is a scabby alliance of hyper spiers whole principle aim is the same as China’s, to regain their former position and territories using pan espionage and lying.
In reality their ability to see me picking my nose in the morning doesn’t give them the right to game the pound or close down much of British industry.
The outward manifestations of the war with these thieves is something like two people wrestling over the steering wheel while driving at high speed.
The inner manifestations of this power struggle are the stuff of every good cowboy film.
Clinty rides off into the sunset leaving the corpses of Rees mogg, The Oaf and Patrick Mercer for the crows.
The British left saw the EEC for what it was long before it morphed into the nakedly neoliberal and anti democratic EU of today. However, if you regard the genuine left as being Chuka Umuna and Jo Swinson rather than Skinner and Tony Benn I accept your comment is made in good faith.
Chuka and Jo are not left at all. I am talking about real left. It is difficult to extrapolate what Benn would do now but I can see that in this country coming out of the EU is not good for the ordinary man. Why? because the system will not change we shall change one alliance where we have a say with another where we do not have a say.
Can you envisage a scenario where Brexit will be better for this country?
Craig has written before on the scandals emanating from the mismanagement of UK detention centres . Some are contracted out to G4S.
Now G4S have decided not to bid for the renewal of their contract for Brook House at Gatwick airport.
https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/g4s-contract-brook-house-gatwick-16971097
Are things unravelling, again?
Madame Lagarde:s successor at the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, ‘has concerns.
https://news.sky.com/story/new-imf-chief-georgieva-ready-to-be-tested-as-warning-signals-flash-11819656
Commerzbank, in Germany, says it is facing ‘challenges’.
I suspect that the Saudis and their arms suppliers cannot bring themselves to admit that their expensive defence systems were breached by a bunch of guerrillas controlling drones.
I take a Gaullist position, our removal from EU foreign policy formulation will enable the EU to chart a new path, we can’t do much on our own now anyway.
I´m surprised I cant find this mentioned in these comments but when the MSM published Saudi supplied pictures of the bits of missiles that attacked there oil processing plants. I noticed one almost intact missile with Alphanumeric alphabet-modern Arabic numerals printed on the side. And I remember thinking why would the Houthis etch and print such letters on a home made missile, why not Farsi or Arabic script ?in fact why would they print anything on such a weapon. I then stopped thinking about it until I came across posts on Moonofalabama and elsewhere where US sources with practical knowledge even knew what MC-79050 meant – that it was a designation for a sophisticated electronic jamming, NATO cruise missile, manufactured in part in Czech Republic . So where did the Houthis obtain a 1 million or so dollar NATO missile? Or for that matter where would Iran procure one? Maybe its not impossible but then how do you launch your stolen alien missile system in the deserts of Yemen or Iraq?, AND these things must be programmed before launch to tell them where to go, presumably not by a Powerbook via excel through a USB connection.
Pics to remind you and article I found here. https://operationdisclosure1.blogspot.com/2019/09/sorcha-faal-saudi-arabia-displays.html