PM Boris Johnson is now fighting on two fronts.
At home, against the Metropolitan Police inquiry into his law-breaking, and the demand that he be sacked if he is found guilty. And abroad, where he is fighting for massive anti-Russian sanctions in a bid to begin a Third World War to try and restore world capitalism to its former unassailable position.
Yesterday, he refused to say whether he will resign if police find he has broken his ‘lockdown laws’ that he has made and forced everybody else to comply with, however much suffering this caused.
Asked in a BBC interview whether he would resign if police decide to take action, the PM said: ‘I can’t comment about a process that is under way’. Johnson was pressed on the subject by Sophie Raworth in an interview for BBC One’s Sunday Morning Programme.
She asked whether he understood why so many people found his on-the-record explanations – including that he believed he was only attending work events – ‘implausible’. Johnson arrogantly responded: ‘There is literally not a bean I can tell you about that.’
He was asked if he was ‘burying his head in the sand’ as he was being investigated by the police, had MPs calling on him to resign and might face a no-confidence vote. In fact, Johnson has glimpsed a way out. This is leading a war drive against Russia, campaign that could make himself indispensable at least for a few weeks.
Batting for Johnson, Foreign Office minister James Cleverly told Sky News: ‘I don’t think what the country needs now is a vacuum at the centre of government.’
Asked if that meant he thought the Prime Minister should not quit if fined over Downing Street parties, he replied: ‘That’s exactly how you should take it.’
There is every indication that Johnson now thinks that a ‘foreign war’ or a ‘sanctions war’ with Russia could be just the thing to keep him in office, and be very popular with the big bosses.
Johnson is looking for allies. He refused to say in the BBC interview whether any public money will be used to fund the Prince Andrew financial settlement with Virginia Giuffre, rumoured to amount to £12m. Johnson said: ‘No Prime Minister ever answers questions about the Royal Family and quite right too.’
His way out is a war with Russia, either a sanctions war or an armed clash. He announced yesterday that Russia is planning ‘the biggest war in Europe since 1945’.
He emphasised: ‘All the signs are that the plan has already in some senses begun.’ Intelligence suggests Russia intends to launch an invasion that will encircle the Ukrainian capital Kiev, Johnson said.
This is the same intelligence that says that the Russian army is killing its own supporters in Donbass, in a ‘false flag operation’ to start a war and take the Ukraine by storm. Johnson added: ‘The lesson of the Russian seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 is that you can’t just let Vladimir Putin get away with it.’
An invasion of Ukraine would strengthen, rather than weaken, NATO, he predicted, adding that: ‘If Putin thinks he’s going to get less NATO as a result of this, he’s totally wrong – he’s going to get more NATO.’
Johnson is clearly linking his fate to the prospect of war against Russia that would not be just the biggest war in Europe since 1945, but would also suck in China.
In fact, both Russia and China have leapt ahead of the US and the UK in many fields, and the capitalist rulers of the planet consider that if both are not ‘dealt with’ then world capitalism is in fact living out its last days.
Meanwhile, men of fighting age in the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk are being put on stand-by for the war after tens of thousands of women and children have taken refuge in Russia.
The United States has given preliminary approval for a sale of battle tanks and other equipment to Poland as the US continues to bolster NATO forces, further stoking tensions over Ukraine.
US Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin said the sale, worth $6 billion, will ‘help to ensure a more equitable sharing of responsibilities within the alliance for our common defence’. The US Defence Budget for next year is $768bn which is in itself a statement of what is to come.
The UK and US trade unions must respond to these developments and mobilise for general strike actions to bring down the Johnson and Biden governments to stop the war and bring in workers’ governments and socialism.
Imperialism is now fighting for its life. Revolutionary parties, sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International, must be built in all of the major capitalist states to overthrow the ruling classes and create the conditions for worldwide socialism.
