Boris Johnson has so far largely gotten away with his blunder over Russia, but it isn’t just Mr Johnson who should face the rap for using the poisoning of two people on British soil as potential political leverage against another country. To clarify, Porton Down scientist Gary Aitkenhead has confirmed that they have not been able to identify the origin of the substance they claim to be Novichok.
He said in a statement, "We have not identified the precise source, but we have provided the scientific info to [the] government who have then used a number of other sources to piece together the conclusions,"
Misleading claims
Theresa May, Boris Johnson and the whole of the Conservative Party, the DUP and 38 labour mps were categorical in their blame of Russia and in a rushed statement not long after the poisoning, Boris Johnson claimed in an interview that Porton Down scientists could definitely pinpoint the poison used and its origins, however, this recent statement directly contradicts everything the government and the foreign secretary have been saying.
Furthermore, Jeremy Corbyn was chastised and painted as a Russian spy over calling for the correct procedures and evidence to be procured.
Irrespective of whether Russia are found to be the culprits in the future, the government have used their initial claims to very publicly attack the Russian government, along with coercing the international community into doing the same. Although, you might want to cast your minds back, when French President, Emmanuel Macron, stated that the correct procedures internationally must be followed and evidence must be attained with absolute provability. The foreign office also deleted a tweet that previously echoed Mr Johnson’s claims and now have been trying to deny culpability.
The government as a whole, including those Labour MPs that signed the motion backing Theresa May, have misled the public and the international community, they put all the blame on Russia when there was no irrefutable evidence to produce. These kinds of claims have taken Britain and America into wars that have contributed the significant destabilisation in the Middle-East.
But as I have previously written about, the galvanising of the international community against Russia, is likely to be down to geopolitics and control in the Middle-East, and this also adds weight to the extraordinary claims that Skripal was in fact investigating links between Cambridge Analytica and the Internet Research Agency in Russia, and that this was an attempted assassination by MI6.
More questions than answers
I am sceptical about the latter but the government must come out and explain why they misled the public, they should be held accountable but unfortunately, that will not happen and they have largely gone into hiding now this information has come to light. Whilst Sky News have done well to cover the story, the BBC have helped Boris Johnson by not questioning why he and the government have misled the public. He also, in a bizarre tweet, attempted to shift the focus onto Jeremy Corbyn after he said that the foreign secretary had “questions to answer”.
In response, Russia have called on an UN Security Council meeting to discuss the Salisbury poisoning. Russia has also lost a vote at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on an attempt to seek a new joint investigation into Salisbury poisoning.
An unnamed diplomatic source told Reuters that the vote was lost by 15-6 with 17 OPCW member states abstaining. Russia gained support from China, Azerbaijan, Sudan, Algeria and Iran, Reuters said. Whilst Russia’s blame isn’t absolved, this raises significantly more questions than answers and the international community should be working together but they are too busy playing politics.
