When is a boycott not a boycott? When England confounds expectations by playing well.
That appears to be the more-than-a-little confusing Government message during the Euro 2012 football championships being held in Ukraine, where there are continuing concerns about its ‘selective justice’ system. No government minister has attended a match yet, and that boycott will extend to this Sunday’s quarter-final against Italy.
But the Government has refused to be drawn on whether its boycott would continue if England reach the semi-finals. You can watch Lib Dem foreign office minister Jeremy Browne attempt to justify this inconsistency to Andrew Neil on the BBC’s Daily Politics here:
(Available on the BBC website here.)
* Stephen was Editor (and Co-Editor) of Liberal Democrat Voice from 2007 to 2015, and writes at The Collected Stephen Tall.
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Of course the boycott will not continue if England reach the semi finals as that match would be played in Warsaw! I suspect the bridge of a final in Kyiv will only be crossed if it is reached.
I think Jeremy Browne should come here and say something about the British government’s and the Liberal Democrats’ view of the current crisis in Syria, in the light of this morning’s claims from the Turkish government that its F4 was destroyed by Syria above international waters. There have already been several armed violations of Turkish territory, but this has been much more serious, even if not on Turkish soil. The Turkish government is shortly to consult its NATO allies. Turkey has always been a faithful partner within NATO, much more so than many: if the concept of NATO is to mean anything whatsoever, NATO must show solidarity with Turkey, up to and including invocation of the obligation of mutual self-defence under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. The Syrian armed forces apparently have no interest in respecting Turkish territorial integrity or the rights of Turkish vessels and aircraft to progress through international spaces unhindered: the Syrian government must be reminded of its obligations under international law. NATO is the correct vehicle to remind Syria of that.
And now the Turkish government claims that a second Turkish aircraft has been shot at by the Syrian defence forces. A Search and Rescue flight looking for the wreckage of the F-4 that had already been shot down.