Zelensky’s nuclear option: Ukraine ‘months away’ from bomb

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MAXIM TUCKER IN KYIV
Zelensky’s nuclear option: Ukraine ‘months away’ from bomb
Kyiv could rapidly develop a rudimentary weapon similar to that dropped on Nagasaki in 1945 to stop Russia if the US cuts military aid

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‘It’s wrong’
Mr Johnson said Mr Trump had “lots of different voices in his ears” over Ukraine.

“There’s a front of the Republican Party, quite a lot of them actually, who take the wrong line on Ukraine and who are, frankly, a bit entranced by Vladimir Putin and they have a kind of weird sort of fanboy thing about Putin,” he said.

“You know, taking his shirt off. And it’s creepy, It’s bonkers, it’s wrong. He’s listening to some of those people… he’s hearing all that.

“On the other hand, this is the same Trump who made a huge difference to the fortunes of Ukraine when he authorised the supply of the Javelin shoulder-launched anti-tank weapons.

“If Trump hadn’t done that, then the battle for Kyiv might have been very, very different.”

The former Conservative leader said Mr Trump won the election on the issue of the economy.

“A lot of people looked back to the time of Donald Trump and remembered that things were not only stable, but also quite prosperous and he had a clear and incredible economic message about growth, about tax cuts, about deregulation,” he said.

Mr Johnson said Britain should emulate the Republican’s plan to deport illegal immigrants, saying: “I agree, and I looked at that and I thought we should.

“We’ll see how he gets on because, be in no doubt, the lawyers will be all over it, as they were all over our various projects.

“It’s like I said in April 2022, when I launched the Rwanda scheme, you’ve got to get the legal ducks in a row. And I said to the people, I said to the country that when we launched, that it would only work if we could get the lawyers to back down.

“We live under the rule of law, and we try to protect human rights, but sometimes that protection of rights is done in such a way as to be, I think, unreasonable and against the clear manifesto commitments that the Government has.”

He added: “We’ve got ourselves into a situation where it is very difficult to deport even people who patently should be deported. My party, the Conservative Party, did have a perfectly good agenda. The Rwanda plan was a good one.

“Rob Jenrick was making a very interesting point when he said that it might be time to review the ECHR, the European Convention on Human Rights, because I think sometimes it is being applied in a way that is anti-democratic, and that is stopping the removal of people who plainly need to be removed.

“So anyway, I look at some of the things that Trump is now saying about that issue, and I can understand why he’s saying it. I think that in a democracy, we need to have a way of doing it.”

‘An unfair advantage’

Mr Johnson said: “I’m a mongrel made up of all sorts of immigrants. But the point about immigration is that people will wear it, they’ll understand it, they’ll accept it, if they feel it’s controlled.

“The problem with the illegals, particularly the people who come so visibly across the Channel in the dinghies, coracles, and so on, is that they undermine the people who are coming here legally, and they seem to be getting an unfair advantage.”

The former prime minister said Britain’s reputation for free speech has been put at risk by the Government’s response to the recent riots, with a “disproportionate” number being put in prison.

“When you’re locking someone up for quite a long time, some you know, mother, grandmother, who’s never had a criminal record before, for something she said in the spur of the moment on Twitter, and you’re simultaneously letting people out of prison who are really quite serious offenders,” he said.

“There are people around the world who look up to Britain [as] a great beacon of free speech, right? And they do worry about that, because it does seem to be disproportionate.”

He dismissed a story about the late Queen being relieved after he resigned because he would not be organising her funeral and was “an idiot”.

Mr Johnson said: “I think it’s highly unlikely that she said that because, of course, no prime minister organises the monarch’s funeral. It’s done by the DCMS. I think it’s possible that there’s malicious tittle-tattle.”