Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson revealed in his upcoming book Unleashed that he seriously considered a military raid on a warehouse in the Netherlands to seize COVID-19 vaccines.
Johnson claimed the European Union was acting with “malice” toward the UK during the pandemic.
“We had the people who could do the job – special units that we had stood up in early 2020, as soon as it became clear that there was going to be a global contest for life-saving kit such as PPE and ventilators. We knew exactly where the target was: I could see it on Google Earth. It looked pretty easy to burgle, if you know what to do,” Johnson wrote.
“It was the plant where the EU had stowed five million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine – doses that the company was trying, in vain, to export to the UK. As long as people in my country were dying of Covid, which I am afraid they still were in substantial numbers, I believed it was my paramount duty to secure those doses, which belonged to the UK, and use them to save UK lives,” he continued.
He reportedly discussed the idea with senior military officials, exploring whether such a raid on the Leiden warehouse, which stored vaccines the UK believed were legally theirs, was feasible.
“I was angry enough to contemplate this clandestine operation, because after two months of futile negotiation I had come to the conclusion that the EU was treating us with malice and with spite; not because we had done anything wrong – we had not, far from it; but because we were vaccinating our population much faster than they were, and the European electorate had long since noticed,” Johnson said.
Johnson’s government faced criticism for its handling of COVID-19, including implementing tough restrictions and raising taxes.
