Don't make Theresa May's election mistake, Boris Johnson tells Libya

PA Wire  PA Images
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29 August, 2017

Johnson broke with the Tory party's "strong and stable" sentiments when he admitted to Libyan military chiefs in Benghazi the prime minister should not have called June's snap election.

Foreign secretary Boris Johnson arrived in Libya on Wednesday on a two-day trip to urge rival parties to compromise and unite the country, following the fall of Colonel Gaddafi in 2011.

"The politicians need, as it were, to suppress their own selfish interests, compromise for the good of the country and get behind the United Nations plan", he told Radio 4's Today programme.

Despite Britain and France leading a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation military intervention in Libya in 2011, helping to topple the Gaddafi regime and paving the way for rebel forces, terrorist cells and instability, Downing Street has insisted on meddling once again.

This was the first visit to Benghazi by a government minister since 2011 and the first time that the Foreign Secretary had met Field Marshall Haftar, head of the Libyan National Army, as well as members of the House of Representatives representing Benghazi.

He said: "Of course we were way overoptimistic about what would happen when we got rid of Gaddafi".

Questioned about Charlottesville, he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think he got it totally wrong and I thought it was a great shame that he failed to make a clear and fast distinction, which we all are able to make, between fascists and anti-fascists, between Nazis and anti-Nazis".

Johnson stopped off in Benghazi having first visited Tripoli, where he pledged £9 million in aid to help fight terrorism and prevent the passage of illegal migrants to Europe.

"The Libyan people need a stable state that can meet their fundamental economic and security needs".

However, he warned both sides not to hold an election until they are absolutely ready - unlike Theresa May.

Since this meeting however, Haftar's forces, the Libyan National Army, have announced plans to capture Derna in east Libya in a large scale assault.


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