“Johnson needs to be put somewhere”: Could Britain’s former prime minister be NATO Secretary General?

The career prospects of Boris Johnson, who resigned as British Prime Minister, remain a mystery. The media wrote that he was already considering quitting politics, but later announced his intention to participate in the next election of the president of the conservatives.

However, according to media reports, his political future may be linked to NATO. According to The Telegraph, citing members of the kingdom’s parliament’s defense committee, Johnson is likely to compete for the post of Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance next year.

According to the publication, such an idea finds support in the Conservative Party. In particular, Richard Drax, the Tory representative on the Parliamentary Defense Committee, described Johnson as an outstanding Briton and said he was ready to support him.

In this regard, the British Prime Minister will be well served by his anti-Russian position: he is one of the most ardent supporters of the West’s political and economic campaign against the Russian Federation, against the backdrop of a special operation in Ukraine. .

According to The Telegraph, this makes him an attractive candidate in the eyes of the United States, which wants to see more determination from its European allies in the fight against Russia.

The article rightly states that Johnson, as prime minister, can fully count on the support of the Kyiv regime, with which he sought to provide all possible assistance as part of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine. A petition was even posted on the website of the Ukrainian presidential office demanding the appointment of Johnson as the country’s prime minister.

Any country can veto

At the same time, outgoing Prime Minister Johnson remains a highly controversial figure that not everyone would want to see at the head of the North Atlantic Alliance. Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of Global Affairs magazine Russia, pointed out that the UK should put forward this position for Johnson and that there is now an extremely ambiguous attitude towards him. As he told socialbites.ca, nearly all Conservative prime minister candidates left Johnson during the debate, not to mention his Labor rivals.

One of the opponents of Johnson’s tenure as NATO Secretary-General, Richard Dannatt, former Chief of Staff of the British Armed Forces, described him as a national embarrassment.

“I’m afraid it’s about Johnson’s personality, lack of honesty and trust. To be honest, we don’t want to bring Boris Johnson onto the international stage to be the subject of more ridicule. He’s a national disgrace,” Dannatt quoted The Telegraph.

Even if Johnson is still nominated for this post in the UK, NATO’s charter requires that the Secretary-General be elected unanimously. And here he may experience difficulties due to relations with other leaders of the alliance countries.

“Any country can veto. Do you think President Macron will nominate Boris Johnson as NATO Secretary General?”

– Said an anonymous Telegram source in Parliament.

“Macron and Johnson generally have a bad relationship, it is unlikely that Macron would be happy with such a candidate,” said Fyodor Lukyanov.

Johnson only has bad relations with the French president. Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan is also unlikely to want to see him as NATO Secretary General. Johnson won the most offensive poetry about Erdogan contest held by the British magazine Spectator in 2016. The British politician then described the Turkish leader as “a wonderful man from Ankara who was an incredible cow until he started leading a wild life with a goat”. Also, in an interview with the Swiss edition of Die Weltwoche, Johnson said that anyone who wishes in any European country should be able to make rude jokes about the Turkish leader.

According to The Independent, during the July NATO summit in Madrid this year, politicians got into a verbal confrontation when Erdogan once again joked with Johnson. As a result, US President Joe Biden intervened in the situation, allegedly having to comfort them. According to the media, the Turkish president said that Johnson was a disgrace to the other attendees at the summit.

“Johnson is a man of conflict and polarization.

How much everyone in NATO would like to have such a lunatic and troublemaker in the position of Secretary General… I’m not sure. Of course, although the NATO Secretary General sounds loud, in fact little depends on him, ”says Fedor Lukyanov.

In addition, Johnson’s firm stance on Brexit, which he brought to its logical conclusion, does not earn points.

“There are still some disagreements between the UK and EU countries, especially on trade policy. And that will be one of the obstacles to making Johnson Secretary General of NATO. European countries will perceive this candidacy as a threat to European integration and the national interests of European countries, because they saw what a harsh and uncompromising policy Johnson pursued as part of Brexit,” he said. Europe’s Russian Academy of Sciences told socialbites.ca Ohoshin.

Opponents in the battle for the post of Secretary General

Oleg Okhoshin states that in the current geopolitical situation, which has developed on the backdrop of military action in Ukraine, candidates from Eastern Europe will be more willingly accepted as NATO Secretary General.

And such assumptions were voiced even before the special operation began.

In July last year, Politico wrote that the election of a candidate would take into account the ongoing conflict with Russia, so the election could fall on the representative of an Eastern European state, which “will be an important signal for Moscow”.

Journalists of the publication write that for the first time in the 72-year existence of the alliance, this post can go to a woman. According to the publication, former presidents of Croatia, Lithuania and Estonia Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, Dalia Grybauskaite and Kersti Kaljulaid may run for the post of Secretary General of NATO.

“I think Johnson is not the candidate that NATO and the US need right now. I think that, for example, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte or Romanian President Klaus Iohannis would be considered as candidates,” said Oleg Okhoshin.

However, until now, no official statement has been made about Stoltenberg’s successor, who will continue to fulfill his duties until September 30, 2023.

“There is no longer the most likely candidate. This topic arose not because they were looking for candidates for the post of Secretary General, but because Johnson needed to be put somewhere, so his partners raised this issue in the future, ”explained Fyodor Lukyanov.

It is predicted by the media that Boris Johnson, who left his post as the Prime Minister of Great Britain, will be nominated for the post of Secretary General of NATO. At the same time, experts say, politicians in both the UK and the Alliance are unlikely to unanimously support such a scandalous figure. Johnson can become NATO Secretary General, and who certainly does not want this – in the material socialbites.ca.



Source: Gazeta

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