The most shocking lines from Boris Johnson’s memoir ‘Unleashed’

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he considered authorising an invasion on Holland in a raid to retrieve Covid vaccines, among a series of revelations regarding his premiership during the Covid era in an extract from his upcoming memoir.

Admitting the plans to raid the Dutch warehouse were “nuts” Mr Johnson also detailed how he thought Covid would be a “nuisance”, how he believes Partygate stories were exacted by those “determined to bring him down”, and his initial “amusement” regarding transgender rights.

Raiding Holland for vaccines

In his book, which is being serialised by The Daily Mail, he wrote he “had commissioned some work on whether it might be technically feasible to launch an aquatic raid on a warehouse in Leiden, in the Netherlands, and to take that which was legally ours and which the UK desperately needed”.

It came at a point where the vaccine producer AstraZeneca was, Mr Johnson wrote, “trying, in vain” to export the vaccine to the UK from Holland.

Adding he thought the UK was being treated “with malice and with spite” he wrote: “They wanted to stop us getting the five million doses, and yet they showed no real sign of wanting to use the AstraZeneca doses themselves.”

Mr Johnson said one senior military chief told him his plans to infiltrate Dutch canals were “certainly feasible” but the UK would “have to explain why we are effectively invading a long-standing Nato ally” amid a cross-channel row over exports in March 2021.

Brexit and Bingham

Despite Mr Johnson’s claims that the UK’s relationship with the EU frustrated the vaccine roll-out, he went on to claim it was ultimately “Brexit and Bingham what won”, what he referred to as, “the vaccine race”.

He wrote that his “deal” with the EU meant the UK could “do our own thing”.

He continued: “Under my deal, we came out. We took back control. That meant that when it came to the approval of vaccines, we no longer had to go at the pace of the rest of the European Union. We had our own agency – the ­Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency – and we could do our own thing.”

Mentioning that Kate Bingham, his appointed Covid “tsar” was married to an “old school friend” of his, he denied she had been chosen due to any personal connection to him.

He wrote: “There was innuendo about her business connections, and the implication that she might be somehow profiting personally from her work on vaccines – an absurd suggestion, not least since she was leading the taskforce pro bono.”

Partygate

Regarding Partygate, Mr Johnson said his adviser told him no rules were broken when reports in the Daily Mirror first reached him.

He wrote that the story was “probably some desperate nonsense being peddled by embittered former advisers” and “forgot about it” as it was typical “for the press department to have a glass of wine at their desks on a Friday evening”.

Mr Johnson said there were “about 15 occasions” where Downing Street held parties during the periods of social distancing and lockdowns but said he “only went to a handful” of these events.

He wrote: “There were about 15 occasions when officials in Downing Street briefly slackened the tempo of their work and raised a glass to a departing colleague, or held a quiz, or marked a birthday – in the way that all offices do.”

Pointing to Dominic Cummings, who he said was bitter about his resignation after he breached lockdown laws, Mr Johnson said he was “­vulnerable to the testimony of some who were determined to bring me down”.

Mr Jonson wrote: “I should have realised that my old amigo Dom Cummings – still scorched by Barnard Castle – was behind it all, and that he had a ‘grid’ of grossly exaggerated stories that he and his sidekick Lee Cain were feeding to the media.”

Addressing the illegal party for his own birthday, Mr Johnson said: “I saw no cake. I ate no blooming cake. If this was a party, it was the feeblest event in the history of human festivity.”

He added that he thought he repeatedly “hammered” Sir Keir Starmer when he was leader of the Opposition. He wrote that when he should “go against his masters in the teaching unions” and declare schools as safe.

He wrote: “At this point Starmer would do his puzzled/irritable face, like a ­bullock having a thermometer unexpectedly shoved in its rectum, and I would bash him again and again.”

Testing Positive

Mr Johnson wrote about his own experience with Covid in March 2020, writing that he felt “truly lousy” after initially thinking the virus was only a “nuisance”.

He wrote: “Oh well, I thought. It was a ­nuisance. It might slow me up. But, as I kept telling everyone in those early days of the pandemic, it was generally a mild disease.”

Before he was admitted to the ICU he “could hardly think” and “found it exhausting to even walk”. He said that he felt “political embarrassment” following his positive Covid test.

He wrote: “This virus was new, and deadly, and we did not know which way the pandemic would turn.”

Megxit

Months before Covid triggered a national emergency in January 2022, Mr Johnson claims that officials within Downing Street and Buckingham Palace asked him to talk Prince Harry out of leaving the UK and quitting his royal duties.

He wrote that it was “a ridiculous business… when they made me try to persuade Harry to stay. Kind of manly pep talk. Totally hopeless.”

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The meeting, which occurred on the sidelines of a UK-Africa investment summit in London’s Docklands came after Harry announced he would leave the UK with his wife Meghan.

The meeting lasted 20 minutes, with an insider saying Mr Johnson saw the Prince as a “great asset” to the UK and was keen for him to stay. However, the former Prime Minister found Harry “unpersuadable”. The insider said ultimately Mr Johnson “couldn’t stop Megxit”.

Transgender rights

Mr Johnson also wrote that he struggled to take Penny Mordaunt seriously when she told him that gender recognition for trans people was “the most important issue of our times”.

He wrote: “I didn’t catch all the details, but it seemed fairly harrowing stuff, and at one point I heard Penny claim: ‘This is the most ­important issue of our times.’

“I didn’t always agree with Phil Hammond, but I happened at that moment to catch his eye and to see that he – like me – was ­struggling to contain his amusement.

Mr Johnson added: “I mean, I could see that this was an issue of huge importance to some people (though, surely not that many?) and I could see that it needed to be handled with tact and sensitivity.

“But ‘the most important issue of our times’? Really?”