BoJo Runs Damage Control as Head-Chopping Saudis Execute Three During Oil-Begging Visit

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA - MARCH 16: Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a tour of the manufac
Stefan Rousseau - Pool/Getty Images
Peter Caddle

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson is running damage control after three men were executed during his oil-begging visit to Saudi Arabia.

“Things are changing,” claimed Prime Minister Johnson on Wednesday, after hearing the news that three more men were executed by the Saudi dictatorship during his trip to the Islamist country to beg for oil.

Johnson had been in the Wahabbist nation in order to persuade its rulers to pledge more oil for the West amid a sanctions war with Russia, though critics expressed concerns that the British PM was cosying up to a regime of human rights abusers, who had killed a record number of people last Saturday in the biggest mass execution for a generation.

While Johnson initially tried to play down such concerns, his efforts were undermined when — according to The Times — another three men were put to death by the Saudis as he arrived in the kingdom.

81 people had been executed on the Saturday prior to Johnson’s visit, forcing the British leader to  claim that he would be bringing up the Saudi regime’s record of human rights abuses while he begged for oil.

As a result of the further executions, Johnson has been left scrambling to justify his visit to the Middle Eastern country.

“I think what you can also see is that — and I think that people who come to Saudi Arabia would testify this — in spite of that news you’ve referred to today, things are changing in Saudi Arabia,” Johnson alleged, referring to the regime’s executions as obliquely as possible.

“We want to see them continue to change and that’s why we see value in engaging with Saudi Arabia and why we see value in the partnership,” he wheedled.

While Boris Johnson may claim that Saudi Arabia is “changing”, it seems unclear whether it is changing for the better, at least in regards to its propensity to put people quite literally to the sword.

Although it is unknown how these men, as well as those executed on Saturday, were killed, Saudi Arabia’s favoured method of execution is public decapitation with a traditional scimitar, although death by firing squad is gaining in popularity as executioners sufficiently skilled with a sword are apparently becoming increasingly hard to come by.

People in Saudi Arabia can be executed not only on charges of murder and terrorism but also for such medieval “crimes” as apostasy and sorcery.

Despite the bloodshed, however, both Johnson and the British government seem adamant that Britain should trade with a regime that abuses human rights if it means making the West less reliant on Russian oil.

“I don’t condone the policies of Saudi Arabia,” said Johnson’s Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.

“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,” she said, as if Russia’s behaviour was manifestly more appalling than Saudi norms such as stoning children to death.

Johnson — like Truss — has also expressed his desire to end the West’s addiction to Russian oil and gas, which is apparently immoral in a way that addiction to Saudi product is not.

“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,” claimed Johnson, despite his having severely stunted domestic production by pursuing green net-zero policies he once opposed.

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