TORY Foreign Secretary Johnson was yesterday accused of having ‘lied’ and of ‘misleading the British public’ by claiming that Porton Down had identified Russia as the source of the nerve agent used to poison the former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said yesterday: ‘Porton Down examined it and said all they could identify it as was Novichok, they couldn’t say where it came from and the chemical weapons organisation is meeting to continue that discussion about where it goes from here.
‘The Foreign Office then issued a tweet in support of what the Foreign Secretary said and then removed that yesterday after Porton Down said they couldn’t identify the source of it. ‘So Boris Johnson seems to have completely exceeded the information that he had been given and told the world in categorical terms what he believed had happened and this was not backed by the evidence he claimed to have got from Porton Down in the first place. Boris Johnson needs to answer some questions.’
Corbyn added: ‘There clearly was a huge inconsistency, in that the Foreign Secretary had made a statement, the Foreign Office had put out a tweet in support of what he’d said, Porton Down said they couldn’t and wouldn’t identify where it had come from, so they then deleted the tweet.
‘Where does that leave the Foreign Secretary? Egg on his face for the statement he made on German television.’
On Tuesday, Gary Aitkenhead, chief executive of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) at Porton Down, said that scientists had not ‘identified the precise source’ of the Novichok.
Two weeks ago, in an interview with the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, Johnson was asked why he believed the chemical came from Russia and replied: ‘When I look at the evidence, I mean the people from Porton Down, the laboratory…’ Asked if they had samples, Johnson replied: ‘They do. And they were absolutely categorical and I asked the guy myself, I said, “Are you sure?” And he said, “There’s no doubt”.’
Labour MP Chris Williamson said on Twitter yesterday: ‘Dear Britain, Boris Johnson is your Foreign Secretary and he just lied to justify our country’s foreign policy. How does that make you feel?’
Shadow Home secretary Diane Abbott said: ‘Listen, in his own words, to Boris Johnson claim he had categorical assurances from Porton Down that the nerve agent originated from Russia. This has today been exposed as incorrect.’
The head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence agency said yesterday that the poisoning of Russian former spy Sergei Skripal in Britain was a ‘grotesque provocation’ by the British and US security services. ‘Even when it comes to the grotesque provocation with the Skripals that was crudely concocted by the British and American security services, a number of European countries are in no rush to unquestioningly follow London and Washington but prefer to look into what has happened in detail,’ SVR chief Sergei Naryshkin said.
Russian Permanent Representative to the European Union Vladimir Chizhov also said he does not expect EU states to be putting more collective pressure on Russia over the case, since they failed to reach a consensus on practical steps earlier. ‘I don’t think so,’ he answered when asked whether EU members might further band together to tighten the screws on Moscow.
‘Even in the previous round when the matter morphed into talks about solidarity with Britain, no consensus was reached on practical steps,’ Chizhov added. ‘The only thing decided within the EU was to recall my colleague Ambassador (to the European Union for Russia, Markus) Ederer for consultations in Brussels, with all remaining decisions taken on a nation-by-nation basis,’ he noted.
An emergency meeting of the international chemical weapons watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) took place at The Hague yesterday. Russia, which called the meeting, demanded to know what kind of evidence the UK has provided to the OPCW. But its offer of a joint investigation was dismissed by the UK team at The Hague, which tweeted: ‘Russia’s proposal for a joint, UK/Russian investigation into the Salisbury incident is perverse.’