BoJo Promises to Hold Head-Chopping Saudis to Account on Oil-Begging Trip

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA - MARCH 16: Prime Minister Boris Johnson (L) is welcomed by Mohammed
Getty Images
Peter Caddle

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has sworn that he will hold Saudi Arabia to account as he begs the country for more oil.

While in the country to beg for a greater supply of oil for the west, Boris Johnson has claimed that he will still aim to hold Saudi Arabia’s head-chopping elites to account for their human rights abuses.

The Wahhabist, Islamist state has repeatedly come under fire for its flagrant human rights abuses, including for the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi as well as its more recent execution of 81 people in a single day on Saturday.

According to a report by Sky News, however, Boris Johnson appears confident that he can raise concerns regarding the country’s transgressions while requesting the country send the west more oil.

“I’ve raised all those [human rights] issues many, many times… since I was foreign secretary and beyond and I’ll raise them all again today,” Johnson reportedly claimed, noting however that Britain has “long, long-standing relationships with this part of the world and we need to recognise the very important relationship that we have.”

Johnson also emphasised how important it was — in the midst of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine — to try and wean the west off of its addiction to Russian fossil fuels.

“When we look at the dependency the West in particular has built up on Putin’s hydrocarbons, on Putin’s oil and gas, we can see what a mistake that was because he’s been able to blackmail the West and hold western economies to ransom – we need independence,” the UK Prime Minister said.

“The UK is building an international coalition to deal with the new reality we face,” he is also reported as saying. “The world must wean itself off Russian hydrocarbons and starve Putin’s addiction to oil and gas.”

“Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are key international partners in that effort.”

While Johnson might claim to see Saudi Arabia as a key international partner, previous statements made by the PM seem to raise doubts regarding his current position.

After the murder of journalist and major Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi within one of the country’s consulates in 2018, the Prime Minister slammed the nation’s leaders for the “barbaric act” while claiming that the country had “copied the playbook of Vladimir Putin” for the murder.

The recent actions of the Wahhabist country have not helped matters, with the Saudi state executing 81 people on Saturday, the greatest number of people the country has executed within a single day in their modern history.

While the crimes of sorcery and apostasy are worthy of the death sentence in the country, those executed on Saturday were reportedly put to death for offences such as murder and terrorism, as well as for pledging allegiance to the likes of ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and the Houthis.

While it remains unknown exactly how those given the death penalty were executed, Saudi Arabia’s preferred method of execution is by beheading with a scimitar, though death by firing squad has apparently also gotten more popular with the diminishing availability of qualified swordsmen.

Despite all of this, the UK government does not appear to have any issues with doing business deals with the Saudi government, with British Foreign Secretary Lizz Truss implying that it is more important to fight Russia than it is to tackle Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses.

“I don’t condone the policies of Saudi Arabia,” the Foreign Secretary said on Wednesday. “But we have to be clear that we are facing a serious threat — not just to European security but to global security — in Vladimir Putin and his appalling behaviour.”

 

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