Boris Johnson reveals secret plot to invade Holland and seize Covid vaccines
27 September 2024, 23:36 | Updated: 27 September 2024, 23:44
Boris Johnson has revealed that a secret plot was devised to invade Holland and seize Covid vaccines.
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The former PM said he drew up plans for British special forces to step in after "futile" negotiations with EU chiefs over the release of five million vaccines.
Writing in his new memoir, Unleashed, Mr Johnson says he intended to take matters into his own hands when supplies were "kidnapped" by Brussels bureaucrats in a warehouse in Leiden.
He convened a meeting of senior military officials in March 2021 to discuss the plans.
The extract says the deputy chief of the defence staff, Lieutenant General Doug Chalmers, told the PM the plan was "certainly feasible", using rigid inflatable boats to navigate Dutch canals.
"They would then rendezvous at the target; enter; secure the hostage goods, exfiltrate using an articulated lorry, and make their way to the Channel ports," Mr Johnson writes.
But the senior officer said it would not be possible to do this undetected, with lockdowns meaning the authorities might observe the raid, meaning the UK would "have to explain why we are effectively invading a long-standing Nato ally".
It was later concluded that the idea was "nuts".
Mr Johnson also addresses his personal battle with Covid and the Partygate scandal in his memoir, which is being serialised by the Mail.
He claims that when former Cabinet minister Michael Gove found out he could die, "his spectacles seemed to glitter at the thought".
The ex-PM says he initially ignored advice to go to hospital, despite being so ill he could barely walk, think or read.
He goes on to say that he fought to stay awake while in the Intensive Care Unit at St Thomas’s hospital, amid concerns he would never wake up.
Addressing Partygate, Mr Johnson says he made "several mistakes" but now believes he should have doubled down and defended himself instead of apologising.
He also hits out at Partygate investigator Sue Gray, saying she was behind a "ridiculous and unfair witch-hunt".
Referencing the "cake" meeting at No10, which resulted in a police fine, Mr Johnson says: "I saw no cake. I ate no blooming cake.
"If this was a party, it was the feeblest event in the history of human festivity."
