The Trumpet Newspaper Issue 567 (March 23 - April 5 2022)

Page8 TheTrumpet MARCH 23 - APRIL 5 2022
FortheRecord
We must end our dependence on
Putin’s oil and gas
By Rt. Hon. Boris Johnson MP
A speech to the Conservative Party Spring Conference in Blackpool
by The Rt. Hon. Boris Johnson MP
It’s absolutely fantastic to be back
here in Blackpool.
I first spoke here 25 years ago,
1997. I was the freshly defeated
candidate for Clwyd South. And I did
the appeal. But I didn’t think they
could get Jeffrey Archer that day.
Because we, as you recall, we’d
been more or less wiped out. And
what a joy it is to come back here
today, quarter of a century on and find
that we have more Conservative MPs
than at any time since the 1980s. And
that we not only hold Clwyd South,
we hold Blackpool South, my friends.
As we meet today, a tragedy
continues to unfold in our European
continent, a vicious and a barbarian
attack on innocent civilians, the likes
of which we haven’t seen since the
1940s. And, Mr. Ambassador, sir,
there you are. Thank you, Mr.
Ambassador, Ukrainian ambassador, I
want to repeat to you directly what I
told your wonderful president
Volodymyr Zelenskyy yesterday. We
stand with the Ukrainian people, and
our hearts go out to them.
And tens of thousands of people in
this country are opening our homes, to
the people of Ukraine. We say thank
you to them, and we applaud them.
And with every day that Ukraine’s
heroic resistance continues, it is clear
that Putin has made a catastrophic
mistake.
And you have to ask yourself why
he did it. Why did he decide to invade
this totally innocent country? He
didn’t really believe that Ukraine was
going to join NATO anytime soon. He
knew perfectly well, there was no plan
to put missiles on Ukrainian soil. He
didn’t really believe the semi-mystical
guff, he wrote about the origins of the
Russian people; Nostradamus meets
Russian Wikipedia.
I think that wasn’t what it was
about. I think he was frightened of
Ukraine for an entirely different
reason. He was frightened of Ukraine,
because in Ukraine, they have a free
press. And in Ukraine, they have free
elections. And then with every year
that Ukraine progressed, not always
easily, towards freedom and
democracy and open markets, he
feared the Ukrainian example. And he
feared the implicit reproach to
himself. Because in Putin’s Russia,
you get jailed for 15 years, just
recalling an invasion, an invasion.
And if you stand against Putin in an
election, you get poisoned, or shot.
And it’s precisely... that’s what
happens... and it’s precisely because
Ukraine and Russia, have been so
historically close, that he has been
terrified of the effect of that Ukrainian
model on him and on Russia, and he’s
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