Boris Johnson
Member of Parlament (2001-08; 2015-). Mayor of London (2008-16). Prime minister (since 2019).

Mr Speaker, thank you and with permission, I will update the House on the Government’s Integrated Review of foreign, defence, security and development policy.
Our Review will conclude early next year, setting out the UK’s international agenda,
but I want to inform the House of its first outcome.
For decades, British governments have trimmed and cheese-pared our defence budget
and if we go on like this,
we risk waking up to discover that our armed forces – the pride of Britain –
have (...)

It is great to welcome everyone here to Greenwich and I invite you first to raise your eyes to the heavens.
The Vatican has Michelangelo.
Greenwich has Thornhill who spent 20 years flat on his back on top of the scaffolding, so rigid that his arm became permanently wonky, and he’s left us this gorgeous and slightly bonkers symbolic scene that captures the spirit of the United Kingdom in the early 18th century.
This painting above you was started in 1707, the very year when the union with (...)

DearDonald
It was good to see you again at the European Council this week where we agreed the historic new deal to permit the orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union on 31 October. I am deeply grateful to you, President Juncker and to all my fellow European leaders for the statesmanship and statecraft which enabled us to achieve this historic milestone. I should also register my appreciation for Michel Barnier and his team for their imagination and diplomacy as (...)

Dear Colleague,
I hope that you had an enjoyable and productive summer recess, with the opportunity for some rest ahead of the return of the House.
I wanted to take this opportunity to update you on the Government’s plans for its business in Parliament.
As you know, for some time parliamentary business has been sparse. The current session has lasted more than 340 days and needs to be brought to a close — in almost 400 years only the 2010-12 session comes close, at 250 days. Bills have been (...)
Boris Johnson’s keynote speech at the Paris conference to fight against impunity for the use of chemical weapons
by
Boris Johnson

I’m grateful to the French Chair of the Partnership for convening this important meeting.
We gather at a moment when the rules that guarantee the security of every country – including the global ban on chemical weapons – are gravely imperilled.
Almost a century ago, the world united to prohibit the use of chemical weapons with the Geneva Protocol of 1925.
More recently, 165 countries have signed the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997 and agreed never to develop, manufacture or stockpile (...)

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said:
Reports of a large scale chemical weapons attack in Douma on Saturday causing high numbers of casualties are deeply disturbing. It is truly horrific to think that many of the victims were reportedly families seeking refuge from airstrikes in underground shelters.
Despite Russia’s promise in 2013 to ensure Syria would abandon all of its chemical weapons, international investigators mandated by the UN Security Council have found the Asad regime (...)

My Lord Mayor, Your Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen.
I’m going to talk about Britain’s global role and our work with our allies around the world but I turn first to the events of this remarkable week because never before has there been a collective expulsion of Russian diplomats on the scale that we have seen over the last few days.
As I speak there are now 27 countries that have themselves taken the risk of kicking out people whose presence they deem to be no longer conducive to the (...)

Never before have so many countries come together to expel Russian diplomats. By last night, the total stood at more than 20 nations collectively deciding to remove more than 100 Kremlin officials. In the process these allies of Britain have consciously placed themselves at risk of retaliation.
Their principled stand in the aftermath of the use of a nerve agent in Salisbury on March 4 may well carry a price, perhaps in the form of some of their own diplomats being removed from Moscow, so I (...)

To understand why 3 people lie stricken in Salisbury, look at Vladimir Putin’s actions inside Russia.
Yesterday he was proclaimed the winner of an election that resembled a coronation, complete with a triumphant ceremony outside the walls of the Kremlin. Mr Putin’s leading opponent had obviously been banned from standing and an abundance of CCTV footage appeared to show election officials nonchalantly stuffing ballot boxes.
One loyal functionary in Siberia used balloons in Russia’s national (...)

Jens Stoltenberg: [NATO Secretary General] : Foreign Secretary Johnson, my friend Boris,
Welcome to the NATO Headquarters and it’s really a pleasure to meet you today, here, and thank you also for updating me on the latest developments in the Salisbury investigation.
The attack in Salisbury was the first use of a nerve agent on Alliance territory.
It showed total disrespect for human lives.
And the attack was an unacceptable breach of international norms and rules.
NATO Allies have been (...)

We have a tradition in Britain that any town with a cathedral becomes a city. Salisbury won that title nearly 800 years ago, thanks to the magnificent cathedral that still dominates its streets.
So you can imagine Britain’s sense of revulsion – indeed of violation – over the fact that a tranquil medieval city has witnessed the first offensive use of a nerve agent in Europe since World War II.
As I write, the principal target, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter, Yulia, are both in critical (...)

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