Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he considered “a maritime raid” in the Netherlands to seize Covid-19 vaccines

In a book, Boris Johnson uses this anecdote to denounce what he considers to be a blockage for which the European Union is responsible.

Was Boris Johnson really thinking about going on the attack? The former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom claims that he considered, in March 2021, “a maritime raid” in the Netherlands to seize vaccines against Covid-19. This is what he writes in his book Unleashedsome pages of which were published in the British daily Daily MailFriday September 27. The politician explains that he developed a plan to obtain the five million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, stored in a Dutch warehouse, “after two months of vain negotiations” with the European Union.

Boris Johnson says British Army Lieutenant General Doug Chalmers told him a raid with small boats to cross the English Channel and navigate the Dutch canals would be possible, while warning him of diplomatic consequences. “If we are detected, we will have to explain why we are, in fact, invading a long-time NATO ally”Doug Chalmers then warned him, according to the extract posted online by the Daily Mail.

“Of course I knew he was right and I secretly agreed with what they were all thinking, without daring to say it out loud: it was all nonsense”says the former British Prime Minister. “I was angry enough to consider this clandestine operation, because (…) I had come to the conclusion that the European Union was treating us with malice and malice”he justifies.

The vaccines in question were developed by the British University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, but the doses were manufactured by subcontractors partly located in the Netherlands. “This was the factory where the EU had stored five million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, doses which the company was trying, unsuccessfully, to export to the UK,” assures the politician, who judges that the European Union “had kidnapped our vaccines”.