Sunny Hundal writes:
Britain used to take
international affairs and our relationship with other countries with the seriousness
it deserved.
But with just two
strokes of her pen, new Prime Minister Theresa May has returned Britain to its
newly found status as an international joke.
When a US State
Department spokesman was told about Boris Johnson becoming Foreign Secretary last
night, he almost laughed,
while German TV presenters didn't even hold back.
A friend who
was at the Foreign Office messaged me last night to say: “Boris fucking Johnson
in Beirut dealing with Syria? I can't even deal with this lunacy.”
But if appointing Johnson is a joke, the PM’s decision to
put Liam Fox on front-line politics again is nothing short of dishonourable.
Remember that Fox was forced to resign in disgrace as Defence Secretary in
2011 because he had invited his old mate Adam Werrity, a lobbyist, to
international trips and private Ministry of Defence meetings even though he had
no official role in Government and no security clearance.
Werrity handed out
business cards suggesting he was Fox’s adviser and went along to meetings with
defence contractors and diplomats.
It was a serious breach of security and a
serious abuse of governmental power.
Liam Fox shouldn’t have just retired from the front bench; he should have been
asked to resign as an MP in disgrace.
Even in much more corrupt countries than
ours, such a dereliction of duty on national defence matters is taken very
seriously.
Theresa May was supposed to be a safe pair of hands
– so why did she start denigrating our position on the world stage
within hours of becoming PM?
Because she put domestic politics ahead of our
international standing.
Both Johnson and Fox were prominent Brexiteers (along
with David Davis, who is now in charge of actually implementing Brexit)
and she wanted to ensure no one could accuse her of being soft on our
referendum choice to leave the EU.
And May will probably get away with it because political
journalists in Westminster are too busy being awed by her “bold” move.
On the
BBC Radio 4’s Today programme
this morning there was no mention of Liam Fox’s resignation in disgrace at all.
It was as if it hadn’t even taken place.
If a Labour government had done
something similar, you can bet John Humphrys’s salary he would have
harangued a Labour MP about it.
Arguably, it is clever
to ask those who broke Britain by getting us to vote Leave to fix what they
started.
But I don’t want clever politicking – I want Britain to get
serious about the huge challenges we face as a country now we have to leave the
EU.
And those who praise the politicking over the implications this has are
being derelict in their duty.
Liam Fox doesn’t have the moral
authority any more to criticise other countries on corruption or conflicts of
interest.
He is tainted – and by association so is the entire British
Government.
By appointing Johnson and Fox, our new Prime Minister has put her
political priorities ahead of Britain’s priorities.
And that is a dangerous
start at a very precarious time.
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