Boris Johnson and his economically illiterate and war mongering team have achieved a “pyrrhic” victory in the Conservative Party’s no confidence vote and NATO/EU whine about a wheat crisis which they could easily remedy as Russia exports record amounts of wheat and offers to enable Ukrainian exports. Africa comes to an arrangement on Russian exports and blames the West. The EU shoots itself in the foot by attacking Russian oil exports, driving up oil prices for a world which resents Europe’s arrogance.
THE JOHNSON VOTE:
The vote against Johnson – 41% of the parliamentary party – was 4% higher than the vote against Theresa May which eventually led to her downfall
Johnson has played the arch war monger in Ukraine and at home tried to play the big spending socialist and the Conservative promiser of tax cuts – a recipe for disaster.
He managed to alienate all wings of the Conservative Party, failing to protect trade with Northern Ireland (an integral part of the UK), failing to counter the woke inside Government, losing control of the ever higher taxes on business, arming Nazi Azov troops and making ever more aggressive military moves against Russia out of all proportion to Britain’s actual military credibility and power.
People will not forgive the partygate fiasco as the centre of Government behaved recklessly while ordinary families could not be with their dying relatives but far more Britons will be paying in their businesses and jobs (high taxes and debt) for the extreme Johnson lockdowns during COVID, the avoidable deaths in nursing homes and the criminality of forced vaccinations.
It is ironic that the emphasis should be on parties at Nr 10 (AND throughout the civil service!) rather than the far more serious failures of Government and personal behaviour like lying to his own personal Standards adviser Lord Geidt and speaking of sensitive military information about the Ukraine conflict.
But if the Tory Party thinks his going will solve the problem they are wrong. A complete change of regime and policies – on everything from sex education, puberty blockers, family values, social policy, the crippling cost of the “net zero” farce, foreign affairs, regional inequalities and business taxation is needed. But this political fish has been rotting from the head for a long time.
WESTERN SANCTIONS BLOCK WHEAT TO THE WORLD
The Head of the African Union visited Moscow to seek Russia’s help with fertiliser, wheat and other vital exports blocked partly by the war but mainly by Ukraine and western sanctions. In March 2022 Russia exported 1.7 million tons of wheat – a big increase on March 2021 when Russia exported only 1.1 million tons of wheat, a 54% increase.
Russia is not preventing the export of wheat from Ukraine, Ukraine is – through its mining of the Black Sea and their deliberate sinking of ships which prevent exports from Odessa and other Black Sea ports. If Ukraine de-mined the ports Russia has promised to guarantee peaceful passage of the ships.
Russia has even offered to allow Ukrainian grain exports from the two ports on the Sea of Azov which it now controls – Berdyansk and Mariupol. Russia has already cleared shipping passages of mines.
Vladimir Putin has pointed out that there are other routes for Ukrainian wheat exports – through Romania, Hungary or Poland but by far the best would be Belarus to the Baltic ports. But here again it is the West’s sanctions on Belarus which prevent the exports.
As even the BBC reported: “Yevgeny Balitsky, in charge of Russian-held areas in Zaporizhzhia region, said grain had left the region on freight trains bound for Crimea and, from there, to the Middle East. He told Russian state TV “the main contracts are being concluded with Turkey”. A spokesman for the Russian occupation authority in Crimea, Oleg Kryuchkov, said 11 waggons of grain had arrived in Crimea from Melitopol, a city in Zaporizhzhia. He spoke to Russian state news agency RIA, which also said grain was being transported from the occupied Kherson region.”
THE WEST’S DISASTROUS GEOPOLITICAL COSTS
Whether it be the EU’s catastrophic oil import embargo** which has driven up oil prices from about $105 to $120 per barrel, or the threat to gas imports which has driven up gas prices or the mining of ports or the sanctioning of Belarus the sound of the West shooting itself in the foot may be hilarious but it has made the world outside Europe extremely angry at the enormous cost of energy, food and fertiliser so vital for the world’s economy.
Africa has taken note. And it is to Russia it has come for help, not the hapless West. Just as the US Dollar, western banking and payments systems have now lost all credibility in the world (because they have been used as political weapons), destroying the principles of international trust on which the world economy is based now the world is turning to do business with those who have the commodities and whom they can trust to honour contracts. That Russia and China (increasingly dominant in Africa) are the more trusted shows how low the West has sunk and what the long term costs will be.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………….
**As noted the EU’s plan to stop Russian oil exports has already raised oil prices – just as the USA warned it would when they urged the EU not to do so!
The biggest refinery of oil imported to Europe – located in Schwedt, Germany – is set up for the Russian Urals grade. Stopping Russian oil imports will cause massive disruption and delay and will be a severe blow to the German and EU economy. No wonder Germany is losing patience with Ukraine’s Zelensky.
