COMPLETLY BALMY

Boris Johnson: UK considered military raid to seize Dutch Covid jabs

The plan was ultimately abandoned because invading a NATO ally would be “nuts,” former prime minister says in excerpt of memoirs.

The plan was ultimately abandoned because invading a NATO ally would be “nuts,” Johnson explains in his memoirs. | Carl Court/Getty Images

September 28, 2024 

By Max Griera

Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson considered sending troops to the Netherlands to seize a supply of five million doses of Covid vaccines held in Leiden, according to an excerpt of his forthcoming memoirs published in the Daily Mail.

In the spring of 2021, the EU and U.K. were wrestling over the production of Covid-19 vaccines in a factory located in Leiden, near the Dutch coast. The factory was run by Halix and supplied AstraZeneca vaccines contracted by both Britain and the EU.

Amid scarce supplies of vaccine doses, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had threatened to cut off vaccine exports to countries with higher vaccination rates than the EU as well as for countries that refused to share their own vaccine supplies with the bloc —  both of which criteria applied to the U.K. at the time.

In his memoirs, titled "Unleashed," Johnson explains how after two “futile” months of negotiations with the EU to release the doses he demanded the British armed forces to devise a plan to extract them by force. Senior army officials offered sending soldiers to cross the English Channel clandestinely to seize the vaccines, according to Johnson.

The plan was ultimately abandoned because invading a NATO ally would be “nuts,” Johnson explains in his memoirs.