UK in flux: Johnson’s speech, Paterson row, Interpol saga, and the migrant debate

London: In the wake of the controversy over paid lobbying, the Johnson amendment preventing MP’s from having second consultancy jobs was passed in the House of Commons, it was reported that this new amendment only affects 10 MPs . The Prime Minister then faced the Liaison Committee, made up of cross-party House of Commons Select Committee chairs to scrutinise the work of the PM, in this case, the management of the Owen Paterson case and the rules concerning so-called “cash for access”. Johnson admitted his approach based around compassion for Paterson’s personal circumstances had been a mistake.
Boris Johnson gave his annual speech at Mansion House, UK is still the Climate Cop and any disappointment over the outcome of COP26 has morphed into frustration and efforts to make coal politically unacceptable.
As Russian troops muster on the Ukraine border and a migration crisis on the Polish-Belarus border, Johnson suggested the choice was “between mainlining ever more Russian hydrocarbons in giant new pipelines (NordStream2), and sticking up for Ukraine and championing the cause of peace and stability”. Johnson said the UK supported the sovereignty and integrity of Ukraine not because it wanted to be adversarial to Russia, and remembered that it was Russian blood that enabled the UK to defeat Nazism.
Nor are the UK in any way hostile or adversarial to China, just wholly committed to the peace and stability of the whole Indo-Pacific region. Johnson plans to “concert” US’s Build Back Better World, France’s One Planet initiative, EU’s Global Gateway, and UK’s Clean Green Initiative to disseminate private finance, innovation, and enterprise throughout Africa, South East Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and Latin America. Johnson’s vision for Global Britain is not just a deal between friends “ it is the beginning of cooperation on the defence and security aspects of technology of many kinds – from AI to Quantum to cyber.” Without naming anyone the PM talked up the power of coalitions, democracy and values versus usurious loans, bullying and gunboat diplomacy, his vision aims to make Britain an economic and science superpower by 2040.
Parliamentarians and activists in exile are in opposition to the candidacy of Hu Binchen to the election of the INTERPOL Executive Committee at the upcoming 89th General Assembly Session this week on 23-25 November.
The government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has repeatedly abused the INTERPOL Red Notice to persecute dissidents in exile. The PRC government also has a history of leveraging INTERPOL committee positions to exert undue influence on the organisation with attempts to interfere with the functioning and political neutrality of the INTERPOL General Secretariat. As the PRC government seeks to use INTERPOL as a cover for its repressive policies abroad these attempts to exert undue influence will only increase. The election of Hu Binchen to the Executive Committee would be giving a green light to the PRC government to continue their misuse of INTERPOL and would place the tens of thousands of Hong Konger, Uyghur, Tibetan, Taiwanese and Chinese dissidents living abroad at even graver risk.
Hu Binchen, Deputy Director of the International Cooperation Department at China’s Ministry of Public Security since 2014, has played a leading role in strengthening China’s security cooperation with various countries such as Malaysia, Turkey, and Cambodia, who have forcibly deported Uyghurs to China in recent years in clear violation of international law. In this light, the representatives from no less than 22 areas, including India, consider Hu Binhen’s candidacy and persona as exemplary of China’s attempts to abuse multilateral institutions for its own repressive interests.
Meanwhile, record numbers of illegal migrants from Africa, Albania, Asia, and the Middle East continue to land in the UK via France. Home Minister Priti Patel has called the UK immigration system “dysfunctional” in the context of the Liverpool Bomber Emad Al Swealmeen, who was apparently able to “exploit the system”. Patel is in Washington DC hoping to enlist support from Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas about combatting the global migration crisis, which is affecting the UK as their destination of choice.
Mostly as a consequence of the last item, the Tories are down in the polls between 2 and 5 points, this showcases the opposition as utterly ineffectual, under the circumstances today if Labour were a credible alternative they would have a twenty point lead.