United Kingdom ‘could join USA strikes on Syria’ – Johnson

Britain would be willing to join the U.S.in striking against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad in response to a chemical attack, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Thursday.

Johnson has claimed that the Assad regime has “unleashed murder upon his own citizens with weapons that were banned nearly 100 years ago”.

On June 8 there will essentially be a choice between two Prime Ministers, May or Corbyn, he says, adding: “It is absolutely vital for Britain’s security that we have the strong, stable and decisive leadership of Theresa May”.

Though the Syrian government denies responsibility for the chemical deployment, Mr Johnson said the Assad regime was “unquestionably” responsible for it.

The Foreign Secretary told the Today Programme on Thursday that Britain would nearly certainly agree to join an attack on the Assad regime, even without first putting it to a vote in parliament.

The chemical attack left 80 people dead and hundreds wounded. Johnson said he thought “mugwump” was a word used by the character Willy Wonka.

“There is no codified parliamentary procedure that formally requires the government to seek approval before taking military action”.

Corbyn said he would not be “reduced to personal name-calling”, and said the priority for Syria was finding a political solution to the conflict.

Ms Johnson reportedly had talks with the party about standing at the general election for them in a target seat.

The Foreign Secretary warned in a newspaper article that voters should not be lulled into thinking that Mr Corbyn was a “mutton-headed old mugwump” who was essentially harmless.

There had previously been much speculation in the media about what role Johnson would play in the election campaign.

Speaking on ITV, he said that the claims, which were posted on the side of the Vote Leave campaign bus, were “not disputed”.

“The £350m represents the total sum that we do not control every week that is spent by Brussels, either in this country or it’s squittered away in some other European country”.

Mugwump – it’s an insult that perhaps only Boris Johnson would use, and it appears that even he did not know exactly where it came from.