Dear Sir John
Further to my letter dated 24th May 2022 in response to one of your constituents, and our
recent conversation, I would like to address your concerns.
In response to a Parliamentary Question laid by Steve Baker MP, answered on 19th May
2022, Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP stated:
āThe United Kingdom supports a new international instrument to strengthen pandemic
prevention and preparedness. The purpose of the instrument is to strengthen global
cooperation in order to better protect the UK from the health, social and economic impacts
of pandemics. We want to agree UK priority areas such as improving transparency, timely
data sharing and supporting equitable access to vaccines and treatments.
We are clear that the UK would not sign up to any instrument that compromises the UKās
sovereignty. That includes any instrument which compromises the UKās ability to take
domestic decisions on national restrictions or other measures. On the contrary, our
support for a new pandemic instrument is intended to strengthen our ability to prevent,
detect and respond to future health threats without the restrictions seen during the COVID19 pandemic. The UK has led from the front on learning to live with COVID-19 and will
continue to do so at the forthcoming G7 and World Health Assemblyā
Further, I would like to reassure you that there is nothing in the proposed elements which
would constrain our ability to take health decisions nationally. Indeed, there are no plans to
give powers that sit with the UK Parliament or Government to the WHO as part of this
work.
The Government always carefully considers whether domestic legislation will be required
to implement the UKās international obligations when negotiating a treaty. In all
circumstances, the UKās ability to exercise its sovereignty would remain unchanged.
I hope this clarifies the issue for you,
MAGGIE THROUP
What do you think of this?
June 7, 2022
Good morning.
You don’t need a legally binding treaty to do any of this.
Much like the EU when it comes up against strong resistance, it backs away and proposes agreements it can get through. Once the foot is in the door they can then expand and open in a little more, by just amending the treaty. The Lisbon Treaty was designed that way.
So no, I do not want to be part of anything, especially something that is closely associated with China.
June 7, 2022
PS Thank you, Sir John for publishing this.
June 7, 2022
I think it does mean what it says and is ambiguous enough to pull the wool over ministers eyes. Well done civil service, again, for outwitting your ministers and tying their hands.
Trump got it right. He with drew from the Chinese led organisation. He also withdrew from Paris agreement. Oh for a leader rather than a sheep.
June 7, 2022
I totally agree!
According to Laura Dodsworth and others, the ātreatyā is already being enacted in some countries already. So you are correct, Mark B itās all in the detail.
June 7, 2022
No more power to bureaucrats. Look at the mess they made with their response to Covid.
June 7, 2022
+1
Agree.
All we need is a working health system!
And according to WHO all health systems across the world are at breaking point!
However, as with the NHS, nothing can work if it is purposely shut down can it?
June 7, 2022
Thank you, Mark B. I agree.
June 7, 2022
+1 Mark B
I also will never trust the government of a lair. I will remain on my guard
June 7, 2022
I do not believe a word of this vague waffle. She says:- āWe are clear that the UK would not sign up to any instrument that compromises the UKās sovereigntyā. This reminds me of Ted Heath in January 1973 when he blatantly lied: āThere are some in this country who fear that, in going into Europe, we shall in some way sacrifice independence and sovereignty. āThese fears, I need hardly say, are completely unjustified.ā
June 7, 2022
Beat me to it!
June 7, 2022
Exactly, Lifelogic. This is like the EU but much bigger! In a photo of the leaders of the WEF was Ursula Von der Luyan at the centre, front. So Iāve no doubt the WHO has probably all the same people too! Plus, Iāve no doubt, some even more disreputable characters.
And why were David Lammy, Michael Gove and Tom Tugenhat at a Bilderberg meeting at the weekend? Behind closed doors with Chatham House rules.
June 7, 2022
Is this the Socialist dope Michael Gove who wanted to kill many private schools by putting VAT on school fees and abolishing charitable status so users pay four times over not just three? Forcing even more on the the state system so raising no net tax either.
June 7, 2022
Agree totally. The devil is always in the small print, beloved of ādeep state lawyers, civil servants, politicians and the thin end of the wedge.
Naive bollocks talking about global cooperation when, using China as an example, their so called cooperation will be based on protecting their political system not transparency.
There will only be a few countries at our level of development so if necessary bi laterals can achieve our goal rather than being tied to Chinaās poodle, the WHO.
The Internet offers global transparency driven by mutual sharing by āscientistsā interested in the greater good etc. Maggie Throup, hardly impressive, being entrusted with the UKs future, a metaphor for the wider weak, woke group of Ministers. Ugh!
June 7, 2022
+1
June 7, 2022
Agree – this government will and has signed every proposed UN instrument/treaty
This is the same UN that has put North Korea as chair of nuclear disarmament forum at the United Nations
Don’t trust any them
June 7, 2022
+1. LL
If it were the case it would be meaningless and no point having it!
A bit like the UK did not have to bail out the EU! Oh yes we did. RoI was not even grateful for its bail out when it came to Brexit. So much for Cameron saying how we helped out a close neighbour.
June 7, 2022
Maggie Throupās reply is similar to that which a US train passenger received. His train seats were filthy and infested with bugs, so he wrote a lengthy detailed letter complaining to the train company’ s chief.
He received in response a letter seeming to treat his concern with care. At the bottom of the envelope he found a scribbled scrap of paper reading āsend this guy the bug letterā.
M Throupās response was āsend this guy the Javid letterā.
June 7, 2022
So Mr. Javid stated that “We are clear that the UK would not sign up to any instrument that compromises the UKās sovereignty” – as was Ted Heath when he took us into the Common Market that became the Evil Empire.
O/T – Boris will squander his last chance, will he not? So no Macmillanesque night of the long knives to be expected, just a Majoresque decline.
June 7, 2022
Followed by electoral annihilation.
June 7, 2022
Agree.
If only he would drop all the nonsense his position would be so much stronger.
Canāt someone give him a copy of his old, sensible, non greencr*p diary?
Might remind him that he used to be sensible.
June 7, 2022
HUGE problem is that lots of people don’t understand that Patriotism (and Sovereignty) is a VIRTUE (it’s certainly a virtue in Traditional Judaeo-Christianity and from our Greco-Roman heritage but also a virtue of Common Sense as it makes more common sense that a country would be able to govern itself better than foreigners trying to take over governance from one degree to another).
They confused Patriotism (and Sovereignty) with Nationalism .
Nationalism is a vice (just as lack of patriotism is a vice too).
It’s odd how no Brexiter strongly made this differentiation (as far as I recall, at least strongly) before, during and since the Referendum. I suspect, Brexit would have got a much bigger vote, and many more people support it now, if people understood the difference between the two concepts.
(Again, Patriotism is the equivalent of having healthy self-respect for self and love for family and friends. It’s about public duty, sense of personal responsibility, work ethic, modesty, spirit of generosity, sense of imagination, sense of adventure, love of arts and natural world – of one’s country etc. Nationalism is about thinking oneself better than others i.e. other countries. In other words, arrogance. It’s aggressive as opposed to being proactive / creative. And is often used by ‘strong’ / ‘charismatic’ leaders to manipulate others for their own selfish ends).
June 7, 2022
So 40% of Tory MPs have voted against Boris – what a foolish rabble of bitter lefty EU remoaners they are. When they should have removed the āno change no chanceā John Major they did not and he duly buried the party for three+ terms. Here for all his faults Boris is clearly the best chance they have of winning the next election.
All he needs to do is ditch expensive energy/net zero, stop Sunakās tax, borrow, print and piss down the drain agenda, have a bonfire of red tape, kill HS2 and stop all this governmentās socialism. The dreadful Hunt is perhaps the best placed contender perhaps he would have got 10% in an election. Boris 60% contender 10%.
Boris also needs to ignore his daft, green crap pushing, theatre studies wife who seem to have converted him from a climate realist, libertarian, small government Conservative into the complete reverse. We need the old Boris back. The realistic contenders are all for worse.
June 7, 2022
Your final 2 paragraphs perfectly summarise exactly what will not change under Boris, therefore he has to go.
Major survived after his vote of no confidence because the future impact of EU membership was not an everyday painful reality for voters who still enjoyed the benefits of the Thatcher revolution.
The current daily grind of ever increasing inflation, home energy costs, travel costs, low interest rates for savers, rising taxation and an unplanned population increase will lead to one conclusion for voters at the next election, Change of Government.
What has Boris brought us, loss of real income, loss of value of savings and pessimism on a “nuclear” level.
June 7, 2022
Lifelogic
I agree with you on this, ā All he needs to do is ditch expensive energy/net zero, stop Sunakās tax, borrow, print and piss down the drain agenda, have a bonfire of red tape, kill HS2 and stop all this governmentās socialism. ā
But this is what is being used to create the one world governance.
I disagree with you about Jeremy Huntā¦he was a remainer and quite happy for his sister to be locked into her flat for two weeks, when she returned to China.
June 7, 2022
Well, you perhaps have a point since the Tories’ target voter could be epitomised now by the guy smoking outside an urban pub doorway.
The Tories are no longer the party of the village green preservation society, nor of jam-making WI members, nor of the Anglican congregations.
They are now that of the profanity-chanting drunken football lout, of the illegal dog breed-owning cowboy trader, of the aggressive speeding driver in residential avenues, of the litter-dropper, and of the fly-tipper.
Some voters in leafy Amersham and Chesham, and in North Shropshire, have perhaps sensed that and now wish to dissociate from them at a personal profile level?
This right wing identity politics cuts all ways, comically.
June 7, 2022
More lefty fantasy twaddle from NHL
There aren’t tens of millions of guys smoking outside pub doorways et al.
You are being totally ridiculous.
June 7, 2022
what a load of cobblers.
June 8, 2022
So for whom do those people vote these days then?
The Greens?
The LDs?
The – as you call them – metropolitan elite Labour Party?
June 10, 2022
This is definitely the cameo of the recent tory , but is typical of all categorisations , e.g the dumb blonde , the women driver , lefty greenist crap, pinko liberal idealism and so on .If you don’t want yourselves categorised then don’t do it to others!
June 7, 2022
Agree totally. But not as easy as it sounds.
We talk as if the Tory party is of one. Unfortunately the Mays and Hunts plus supporters are still tied by an umbilical cord to the EU as is the Civil Service plus left and right issues on other subjects. Plus their own naked leadership ambitions. So the political equivalent of herding cats.
It is not in Johnsonās nature to confront, he has always courted popularity running away from conflict and so he is desperately trying the impossible task of appeasing all factions and not succeeding. Equally a butterfly mind so āinstant impact statementsā but no long term depth.
He has two choices. Continue and suffer a slow ādeathā or Big Bang. Drive hard at Brexit, tax, pragmatic on green.energy etc getting back to the mandate he was elected upon.
If the āHuntsā of this world donāt like it, the electorate will and at least if he then gets pushed out, he would have given it ago.
June 7, 2022
Unfortunately it was stressed last night that the votes against the Conservative leader were mostly a reaction to his behaviour not his policies.
The current Conservative party agrees with the political direction of the current administration. For those of us who disagree with high tax, cradle to grave, (outsourced) net-zero, unlimited immigration, Covid over-reaction & inflationary policies there is no current offering.
It was a secret ballot but Sir John, I do hope you voted against him and I hope you did it because you disagreed on policy.
June 7, 2022
NS it doesn’t sound at all simple as some commentators, who you must assume know what’s really happening, say that the MPs voting against Boris are the remainers who wish to rejoin the EU as perhaps evidenced by the letter from Jesse Norman and our hosts many tweets and articles about the EU. Duplicity abounds but a number of Brexiteer MPs on television are in favour of Boris.
June 7, 2022
NS that is interesting. We should know each of Boris’s policies and priorities for the next two years and what % of his elected MPs support each policy.
June 7, 2022
Absolutely right, but he wonāt do it.
Bring in Lord Frost to run the Government, and let Boris do the spouting and glad handing etc. He is good at that.
June 7, 2022
I want Boris to remain cause he’s actually a lot smarter, politically, than I thought. Plus he’s great at branding Brand UK (compared to the others who could take over his leadership who I don’t find very inspiring and so I expect the rest of the country / voters).
June 7, 2022
Boris is still insisting we all ditch our gas boilers and I presume that means oil too. Forget about pandemics killing us. There’ll be many dying from the cold because they simply cannot afford what they are being asked to do. What bank is going to lend out money to those on low wages? Those on benefits will probably get it all done for them. Who is going to replace their floors and redecorate their homes after having to replace radiators etc? If Boris keeps on down this road he’s doomed and so is the party and hopefully any other party insisting on this crap. I see John Kerry had to stick his oar in again saying that it’s wrong for governments to put the people first making sure they have food and heating. What planet do these morons live on? Oh, don’t tell me. One that has the slogan ‘I’m alright Jack’.
June 7, 2022
+1 and heat pumps especially in retrofits make no sense at all. Vastly expensive and ineffective. Do not even save much or any CO2 when properly analysed.
June 7, 2022
FuS – Boris should start with all new homes and flats ditching gas boilers, there are thousands of new homes appearing every year in the UK now (approx 184000 this year have been completed July to June 2022). I read there will be a new rule soon that all must have electric charging points for cars. It sounds high until you realise they were building 415,000 in the peak of 1969 and half of those were local authority housing.
June 7, 2022
Unless he ditches his wife it will not happen. Lord Frost made it clear of the greenies he surrounds himself with. Wrong direction wrong policies. We cannot afford Johnson in govt. a chaotic waster in his private life and mirrored in public life.
He tried to change the rules for Owen Patterson, broke the covid laws he created for everyone else, broke election laws for wallpaper, and now changing the minister code!
These leftie dopes you refer to LL would include Johnson!
June 7, 2022
Totally agree LL, well stated.
Boris needs to admit that the EU wants to punish us, France hates us and Germany tolerates us, so he must stop trying to be nice and friendly and get on with implementing all the Brexit advantages. We are right on the edge of pulling the plug on the NI protocol for the second time and it won’t bring the EU to the negotiating table, so Boris don’t chicken out for second time. Pull the plug.
He screwed up Rawanda by announcing it and waiting for the legal claims, so we have the ”illegals” threatening hunger strikes and suicide. A good sized weekend haul of boats should have been rounded up (excluding women and children) as they arrived and flown off that day to Rawanda. There is no law telling us where we have our reception centre. Two flights like that and the traffickers wouldn’t have any customers.
Sort out the gas problem and open up the North sea which will increase our energy security and help with reducing the rising cost of living. Also at the very least halve the ”wind levy” on electricity and remove VAT on domestic bills.
Tell the Civil Service that the Government is running the country, and not them and move several departments up North so they can work a full 5 day week. Ignore a lot of the Treasury EU tainted advice and cut taxes so this country once more becomes a place to invest.
Fishing and farming is in a ”green crap” mess. Get control of our waters and increase food self-sufficiency.
Implement Brexit and over 50% of those who voted to oust Boris will return to support him. The other half are died-in-the-wool Remainers and every effort must be made to ensure that they don’t disrupt government as they tried to do in 2018/19.
June 7, 2022
Lifelogic ,
āAll he needs to do is….ā
&
āBoris also needs to…..ā
Dream on.
June 7, 2022
I don’t care about Boris Johnson but I care about the future of the United Kingdom and I want him to sort out the mess he has made in Northern Ireland before he goes. I would say there is now zero chance that the kind of Bill being trailed by Liz Truss would even get through the Commons let alone the Lords and she should drop it and instead propose a Bill to supplement the protocol, not override it, by passing the laws adumbrated in the Command Paper back in July:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/06/06/higher-taxes-do-not-bring-down-deficits-or-boost-investment/#comment-1322562
Once an effective alternative to the obnoxious protocol arrangements has been implemented and shown to work we would be in a stronger position to tell the EU, and the world, that the protocol must be amended.
June 7, 2022
https://www.rte.ie/news/2022/0607/1303473-protocol-uk-market/
“UK bill proposal would override Northern Ireland Protocol”
“It is understood the legislation, which is expected tomorrow or Thursday of this week, will give future ministers enabling powers to enact secondary legislation that will give effect either to an agreed way forward, if the outcome of negotiations with the EU are successful, or will give effect to a new unilateral model created by the UK, based on a dual regulatory regime.”
This Bill will inevitably be depicted as just more law-breaking by Boris Johnson, and it seems unlikely that many of the 148 Tory MPs who voted against him yesterday over law-breaking will vote for it. If just one in three of them voted with the opposition that would be more than enough to stop it. And even in the unlikely event that it got through the Commons it would not get through the Lords.
June 7, 2022
‘ bitter lefty EU remoaners ‘
Evidence?
June 7, 2022
LL you misjudge the situation. It’s extremely unlikely that Boris will backtrack on any of the points you mention and it’s obvious to so many people that he is totally self-centred in both his public and private life and seems incapable of realising what’s beneficial for the country.
June 7, 2022
Well perhaps – but who would be any better? Non of the dire realistic contenders – Hunt, Truss, Javid, Gove, Tugenhatā¦
June 7, 2022
It was interesting to read Jesse Norman MPās letter of no confidence. He said he was voting against Boris because he didnāt agree with him on Rwanda, or on scrapping the NI protocol, or on privatising Channel 4. Makes you wonder why heās a Conservative MP at all, the LibDems offer all the policies he wants.
June 8, 2022
+1
June 7, 2022
@Lifelogic
I don’t think that we can blame a wife for taking advantage of her weak husband.
I’m told it happens all the time.
June 7, 2022
Well perhaps – but who would be any better? Non of the dire realistic contenders – Hunt, Truss, Javid, Gove, Tugenhatā¦
June 7, 2022
LL,
You want Boris to stay but he’s NOT doing any of the things you wat him to do. Logic?
I accept your concern about ‘who else’, but surely Bunter is not going to improve by the next election and then we’ll have a disaster Labour government. Better we at least try to find a real Brixiteer PM now, who has 2 years to turn a train-wreck into a success, than have 2 more years of cock-ups and embarrassment.
June 7, 2022
Also deter and return the many thousands of economic migrants arriving each week rather than just worthless hot air and merely pretending too. If he needs ways to cut government expenditure there are thousands I can easily suggest – start with net zero, the idiotic renewable subsidies, the worthless degrees (75% + of them are), the hugely inefficient & incompetent monopoly NHS, fiscal complexity…
June 7, 2022
UK capitalists depend heavily on “economic migrants”.
What do you seriously expect their very own party to do to change that?
June 7, 2022
The disorderly rabble seems to have consisted of four groups: the dishonest and anti democratic rejoiners who drove the coup; the personally disappointed; the disappointed Brexiteers and low tax conservatives; and the panickers.
June 7, 2022
The only group with any credibility were the rejoiners, because they would gain if Starmer formed the next administration with Mrs Sturgeon. The others had nothing to gain from capsizing the boat. The Brexiteers could not have returned a Brexiteer PM; the personally disappointed and the panickers could not have agreed on whom they wanted; and the group I forgot to mention, the libertarians, were in a minority too, though they overlapped with the Brexiteers. All they have done is fired the first shot in the latest phase of the civil war within their party over the EU.
June 8, 2022
Thanks rose for a balanced analysis, so much better than that from LL ābitter lefty EU remoanersā, which can readily be blown apart looking at the names of those who said they had voted against Johnson.
June 7, 2022
LL “Here for all his faults Boris is clearly the best chance they have of winning the next election”
Boris is the best chance ?
Someone who wants more immigration and wants to give an amnesty to all those here illegally ?
June 7, 2022
They say people āget god when they are about to dieā
This could be Borisās about to die political death moment.
June 7, 2022
You have got it in one LL
Excellent post.
Just add that the media are doing their very best to attack the PM
June 7, 2022
You turn if you want to, Boris is not for turning….
June 7, 2022
Lifelogic
The old Boris you yearn for is over the hills and faraway in Carrieland.
June 7, 2022
Why on earth is a treaty needed at all? We can cooperate when sensible but not when it is not sensible – no binding treaty is required nor should we have anything that binds future governments.
Look at the appalling damage done by the climate change act and Mayās moronic net zero law. The WHO has an appalling record of gross incompetence and worse.
June 7, 2022
If the UK had taken WHO’s – and Italy’s – advice early in the pandemic then scores of thousands of British lives would likely have been saved.
Not that you could care less, apparently.
June 7, 2022
Like Sweden perhaps?
June 7, 2022
Swedenās King Carl XVI Gustaf: we have failed with light-touch Covid-19 policy.
Huffington Post 18/12/2020
Worldometers.info : death/millions DK 1093, Finland 833, Norway 576, Sweden 1857, UK 2608.
So P2, please give us a bit more details about what has been so great about Sweden.
June 8, 2022
Your last two figures give the answer that matters to us in this country, Hefner. You could also compare Britain’s with Sweden’s lower inflation rate, thanks to no madcap money-printing over there.
June 8, 2022
You miss the point heffy
NHL was back on his usual argument that if only we had locked down a month earlier when cases were few.
Sweden had light restrictions and compared to the UK (and other European nations) Sweden did well despite not locking down as we in the UK did.
June 7, 2022
Drivel.
June 7, 2022
I see you’re still way adrift on Covid, lad. It seems to do no good to ask you to look at the figures, but let me have just one more go. Covid deaths per 1m pop.: Italy 2,770, UK 2,608 (Worldometer). Also, you could have a look at how Sweden (no lockdown) compared with us (3 lockdowns).
Studies examining whether the stringency (duration and severity) of lockdowns correlated with outcomes have found they didn’t. The data’s come in now, lad, we’re no longer in 2020.
June 7, 2022
NLH the WHO told us masks didn’t work early in the pandemic, they told everyone not to ban flights and disagreed with Trump. There were many missteps in their advice.
June 7, 2022
NLH. What a load of drivel. If the WHO had actually stopped China sending out flights with thousands of people all over the world including London and Italy then maybe the virus wouldn’t have spread like it did in the first place. Once again a totally anti UK comment from you.
June 7, 2022
Lifelogic
Exactly
June 7, 2022
Itās a process towards world government, they currently set guidance, regulations, a world bank, a military, and instruments. treaties ā¦.next they’ll set laws & its own currency and hey pesto we have āworld governmentā
June 7, 2022
Or the UN Migration pact!
Immigrants flooding in at over a million last year! What about Johnsonās net stupid? Where are they going to get medical treatment, or do we all wait longer? Where do their kids go to school? Council service are the most expensive waste of money, any change in the near future or do we,get charged three or four times for the same thing? Cost of living my arse. Johnson created it with an unnecessary lockdown that he did not comply with.
LL,
You might recall only a few weeks ago Johnson doubled down on wind farms smearing those opposed to his view!
June 7, 2022
+1
June 7, 2022
Boris did eventually agree with the experts, the news channels, the WHO, the scientists and all those giving advice from SAGE to lockdown, it amazes me when Akinnola in the Guardian says Boris didn’t “prioritise the people”, he has bankrupted us giving in to the people’s demands for furlough for longer and longer periods, even though he was resistant personally and got panned for it repeatedly. He was an IDIOT to allow the Downing St office to drink on duty, to celebrate anything they should have worn the hair coats expected of everyone else and he shouldn’t have turned a blind eye BUT where were his people in charge of Downing Street he is a bad chooser of right hand people to help and guide him.
The NHS didn’t want people in the hospitals, the care homes didn’t the public were stopped by our National Health Service because their experts said NO. Boris didn’t go and have a party on a ward of dying people. The hysterics are why he had no choice but to lock down. Hope don’t you see you are in a small minority who disagreed with lockdown during 2020-2021.
June 8, 2022
And you are in a larger number, Hope, who now realise lockdowns were a cruel, hysterical, psychologically and economically devastating mistake, never to be repeated.
June 8, 2022
Clough, you’re obviously new here I didn’t agree with lockdown.
June 7, 2022
agreed.
June 7, 2022
+1
June 7, 2022
Spin and false promises just like manifestos. Even if the comments were a legal agreement they could wheedle out of them.
Just why is the government committed to signing up to a binding international treaty if we’re going to continue to have our own policy? Why tie ourselves up in knots to supranational institutions largely funded by wealthy individuals?
Of course it diminishes our sovereignty.
June 7, 2022
Read the reply and expect the opposite.
Bozo has been given another chance but instead if sorting the NIP or mass immigration he will sign dozens of international treaties with an eye on life after Carrie.
Find a suitable replacement soon
June 7, 2022
Now the PM is on the back foot it would be a good thing to remind him that spending billions on windmills is stupid. Today only generating 0.99gw.
It is the coming power cuts that is going to destroy you after 13 years in power wasted.
June 7, 2022
And what does the UK do with its obsessed-over-by-the-curtain-twitchers “sovrinty”?
Waive the rules preventing our rivers and seas from being used as cesspits, apparently.
Anything of significant good?
June 7, 2022
More nonsense from NHL
Who seems over excited today.
The Clean Water Act and Environmental Protection Act were law decades ago.
The rules have been there for decades.
June 7, 2022
I wholeheartedly agree with the previous comments. Those of us who are long in the tooth know that supranational, unelected bodies will grab whatever power they can and this ‘treaty’ is a prime example. The WHO has a very poor reputation, led as it is by a CCP puppet and supported by vested interests . We need to paddle our own canoe and not get involved with these globalist quangos. We must not under any circumstances sign up to this.
June 7, 2022
Back in the day, if this had been a commercial agreement, I’d have been trying to understand the “what’s in it for them & what’s in it for us?” question. Because if you don’t have a good understanding of the benefits and possible pitfalls, how can you sign up to something?
So without even trying to understand the “them” motivations – the more immediate question has to be – What are the benefits (and pitfalls) to us exactly? – and if we cannot clearly state them, why would we ever be foolish enough to agree to it?
June 7, 2022
Don’t see any UK benefit, just another Trojan horse….
All Boris had to do was to fulfill his manifesto pledges, and to obey his own laws. He has at best a year to turn it around to proper conservatism..
June 7, 2022
Why, Wanderer? Because we have far too many civil servants with not enough to do and no idea of the national interest.
June 7, 2022
Agreed.
Why a treaty one needs to ask if it is not to be binding?
June 7, 2022
There are no benefits to being locked in to this treaty. International treaties, always overrides national law so clearly we have to be wary.
Experience shows that as soon as we sign these ambiguous treaties others countries will interpret it to their own liking and those in the U.K. who say now claim it will have “no more significance than The Beano” will immediately turn 180 degrees around and say “sorry Old Bean, you should have realised what you were signing up to!” The U.K. should avoid this woolly health treaty like the plague.
June 7, 2022
‘The UK supports’? I suspect Javid means his government not the British public who quite simply have had enough of this public health fascism.
I believe the public is slowly waking up to the POLITICALLY DRIVEN scam being perpetrated in the name of equality, tolerance and public health. All driven by the State and its lackeys intent of total control of all things. Such an approach can only work if the public comply. Well, the public have had enough. I don’t believe they will comply, they are empty of patience and goodwill. No more, quite simply, no more
I for one cannot take direction from an organisation controlled and led by Marxists
June 7, 2022
Not sure if I can ever trust Sajid Javid’s word again, but Maggie Throup seems to be a principled woman who believes in democracy, and in upholding our sovereignty. This is what she wrote about Brexit in April 2019:
‘At the referendum in 2016, I personally voted to remain within the EU, but the outcome in Erewash was a resounding 62 percent to leave and across the UK, 52 percent to leave.
‘At that time, as I believe in democracy and upholding the wishes of the voters, I gave my unwavering commitment to honour the outcome of the referendum, and that is what I have done over the subsequent three years.
‘I have voted to trigger Article 50, voted for the Withdrawal Act and voted on each occasion for the agreed deal. My commitment to uphold the outcome of the referendum has also meant that I voted to keep āno dealā on the table as a negotiating tool, voted against extending Article 50 past the end of March, and, as the referendum was promoted as a once in a generation opportunity, I voted against a second referendum.
‘At every stage I have endeavoured to uphold democracy which is so precious to our great country.’
Whether Maggie Throup will actually be able to hold Mr. Javid to his word is another matter.
June 7, 2022
For a lot of politicians it just another way of ensuring that just like with the EU there will be yet another unelected body to blame when things go wrong.
The health department will stop seeking continual improvement as the tentacles of the WHO merge into everything they do. Proof that politicians have learnt three fifths of FA from our time spent within the EU, nothing to be held accountable for as there will be an unelected body pulling all the strings, more frightening is its very close relationship with China, hardly what one can call independent.
June 7, 2022
This was part of the response to the petition.
āTo protect lives, the economy and future generations from future pandemics, the UK government supports a new legally-binding instrument to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.
COVID-19 has demonstrated that no-one is safe until we are all safe, and that effective global cooperation is needed to better protect the UK and other countries around the world from the detrimental health, social and economic impacts of pandemics and other health threats. The UK supports a new international legally-binding instrument as part of a cooperative and comprehensive approach to pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.ā
They talk in riddles with forked tongues.
June 8, 2022
And other health threats.
Almost anything can be interpreted as a health threat: Climate. Ladders. Cars. Foreign travel. Farming. Alcohol. School attendanceā¦
June 7, 2022
No surprise at all. Itās just the latest example of government, whether Conservative or Labour led, accelerating the destruction of our way of life. For those of forming the silenced majority outside of parliament, I recommend adopting a stoic view of politics which Iām finding helpful in staying sane: donāt expect anything and youāll not be disappointed; look after your own interests as best as you can; keep working, or adopt a time consuming hobby, to distract from the destruction; avoid spending much of the day on news websites; continue to support Mr Redwood in his efforts to mitigate the worst effects of the destruction.
June 7, 2022
The lies keep coming.
SWEDEN led from the front in learning to live with the virus. SAGE/Johnson panicked; ditched our Pandemic Plan and (unlike Sweden) wrecked the economy and millions of lives.
We don’t need a Treaty or agreement with the WHO. They are controlled by China.
What we DO need are proper scientific debate, not experts silenced so they can’t debate the Government’s policy and the likes of Neil Ferguson/Imperial College with their dodgy models locked in a box and the key thrown away.
I don’t believe any reassurances which come from this mendacious Government – whether they’re straight out of Johnson’s mouth, from his Ministers or minions.
June 7, 2022
Donna and R. G., +1,
Cool reason, Sir John, is clearly impotent against such determined derangement.
“How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?”
June 7, 2022
The WHO is a corrupt and incompetent organisation influenced by bad actors such as China. Why would we want to tie ourselves legally to ANY scheme run by them ? I assume the UK would cooperate with other nations anyway if it were sensible to do so – why is a treaty required to do that ?
June 7, 2022
I would credit the WHO with one thing; at the start of the pandemic their Vice President remarked that the main effect of lockdown will be to make poor people poorer. Oh boy, was he right!
June 7, 2022
Boris will sign the UK up to anything, if it gives him some personal kudos with the EU and other countries. Let’s jump on the bandwagon and polish his halo yet again and to hell with the consequences for the folks back home!
I do hope Boris realises how unpopular he is in the UK and losing votes hand over fist, while the people and countries he is throwing piles of money at cannot vote! Does he care? I doubt it! I suspect he has his future mapped out and he obviously doesn’t need the support of ordinary Brits!
Will the confidence vote change him, his Ministers and his future policies? I do hope so, but I still won’t believe a word that he or his sycophants say. This is a dishonest and unpatriotic government. Wholly dishonest, and has further eroded trust in politicians.
June 7, 2022
The vote last night was about Boris. 148 members of the parliamentary conservative party do not like him to varying degrees, but 211 do. Those 148 should realise that they are there to implement conservative policy, not to further exacerbate that dislike by hampering the passage of conservative policy. That way they consign themselves and the party to electoral oblivion. They have expressed their personal dislike of the PM, end of story.
June 7, 2022
@ agricola “Those 148 should realise that they are there to implement conservative policy, …” – and Boris should be the 149th. to obtain that realization. Alas,….
June 7, 2022
That’s a very particular interpretation of the vote unsupported by any objective evidence at all.
June 7, 2022
Sounds a bit like you would o ly be joining a common market. Its a short end of a wedge.
June 7, 2022
One would hope that aÄŗ politicians will read and follow up on the comments by Pfof. Angus Dalgleish on the CV19 pandemic involving WHO and China published today in the DE on line, before committing this country to signing any treaty that in the long term will not be in the country’s best interest.
The actual number of deaths due to the actions of most countries has still got to be researched including those associated with collateral damage bought about by lock downs. Makes one ask why is WHO pushing so hard to get this treaty signed and ratified?
June 7, 2022
What flannel. Maggie Throup is being disingenuous, to borrow the parliamentary phrase.
It is not necessary or desirable to sign up to this treaty which could cause immeasurable harm in a future pandemic. Following the WHO, China and most of the Western world for the past couple of years proved deeply damaging to the UK, not that it will ever be admitted but one only has to look at Sweden and Florida e.g. Where plans were successfully followed. Plans that were already in place here but dropped to follow the disaster of WHO.
Look at the Migration Compact signed by Mrs May. We now have completely out of control immigration. A disaster for generations to come.
June 7, 2022
Why is a treaty needed for this? When the excrement next hits the fan it will once again be each to their own except the UK who will follow the treaty to the letter.
We get screwed every time we sign an international agreement because we expect to abide by it.
The WHO should merely release recommended preparations and reactions which are non-binding.
June 7, 2022
If Health is not an entirely internal matter then why did we allow Wales and Scotland independent power over health?
The truth is a health treaty is an entirely globalist control mechanism. Just like a treaty on immigration and energy.
The WEF alumni are trying to impose a globalist policy outside the democratic process.
June 7, 2022
Don’t believe a word of it. Anyone who does displays weakness, naivety and complacency.
Does anyone remember the Northern Ireland protocol? Remember how fundamental unreasonable elements were accepted because of weakness. And the way government claimed we were protected, and our freedom and sovereignty secured, through a ‘get out clause’ – Article 16. Remember how we were told not to worry about anything since it was there.
Remember how Boris has promised dozens of times to implement that Article if progress was not made to improve the protocol, but never has and does not seem to have the will or courage to do so.
The same will happen with this global demand. The WHO will not accept any changes to their wording and intentions or the removal any embedded clauses we may not like, so with a bit of luck only we may get something like ‘Article 16’.
Should there be one it too will never be activated so once again we the people and our freedoms, and the country’s sovereignty will be betrayed.
June 7, 2022
Expansion of right to buy?
Get rid before he spends all the money propping himself up. He is giving it to people who will never vote for him.
Those 148 dissenters now need to start voting against him in the Commons.
June 7, 2022
Boris has just won a vote of confidence with more votes of support than he achieved when he was elected leader.
The PM clearly has many enemies in the parliamentary party, yet some of those that voted against him becoming leader, supported him last night. I am afraid that there is a hard core that haven’t changed their mind about him and took the opportunity to try and oust him.
Yet the media are driving efforts to get him to resign – making the news rather than reporting it.
One thing we know : divided parties do not win elections, even though the opposition is in a divided state itself.
The party needs to get over this quickly and present a united front – after all who do they have to replace Boris ?
Hunt ? He is in no way a leader and is a Remainder to the core .
June 7, 2022
So – a treaty that doesn’t bind its signatories, and they remain free to act as they wish.
Who does this Maggie Throup think she’s kidding?
June 7, 2022
Included in the Government statement in response to Petition against signing this proposed treaty it states: ‘To protect lives, the economy and future generations from future pandemics, the UK government supports a new legally-binding instrument to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response………..A treaty is an international agreement concluded between States or with international organisations in written form and governed by international law. The UK is party to a large number of multilateral treaties, including many through the United Nations (UN) and its specialised agencies such as the WHO. These instruments reflect obligations states have agreed to enter into to further common goals.’
Furthermore, Boris Johnson in March 2021 was one of the sponsors of such a treaty. Many of us object to the government signing up to any such a legally binding treaty without proper and thorough consultation, examination, discussion and debate.
Frankly, the Prime Minister and his government cannot be trusted. Whoever the puppet masters are who direct them, it is not done in the best interests of the British people.
June 7, 2022
BT, +1, and excellently well expressed
June 7, 2022
The response of the WHO to Covid where it was shown to have been totally compromised by the Chinese Communist Party , Dr Tedros is after all beholding to them , should mean we limit our exposure to the WHO , not contemplate giving it more powers.
In general I am pretty fed up of this world government agenda, we entrusted our sovereignty to you politicians for 5 years, and expect to have it handed back to us, in full, at the end of your term in office. It is pretty annoying to find some of it has been given away without our say so, especially when a lot of problems we face is the result of government’s carelessly giving away our sovereignty. If the Government wants to give away some of our sovereignty, put it to a referendum, for we don’t trust you lot to treasure it as much as we do.
June 7, 2022
+100 Iain
June 7, 2022
+thousands Iain. UK sovereignty belongs to the people, not the government. It is loaned to politicians and is not theirs to give away (or sell!).
June 7, 2022
Dear Sir John,
I am intrigued by Ms Throup’s reference to ‘proposed elements’ of a pandemic treaty. Do you or Steve Baker know what exactly she is referring to?
At the end of next week, the WHA is convening a public hearing on the proposed treaty, in which one of the questions is: āWhat substantive elements do you think should be included in a new international instrument on pandemic preparedness and response?ā So the elements aren’t there yet.
I wonder if Ms Throup was referring to the bland feelgood generalities in the call for a pandemic treaty put out last year by Johnson and other ‘world leaders’.
June 8, 2022
Perhaps there are proposed elements from which a selection will be made to be included in (v1 of) a proposed treaty.
Other elements may be incorporated later as part of a tidying up exercise!
June 7, 2022
The single most important lesson from the pandemic is that open rigorous debate and scepticism are essential for good decision making. In the pandemic certain positions – such as lockdown being a good idea, any old mask being effective – were put forward as being āThe Scienceā (itself an absurd expression), and anyone, however eminent and well-qualified, who disagreed with the groupthink was shouted down, cancelled and denigrated. So we got 3 lockdowns. Now it turns out based on increasing evidence from around the world that āThe Scienceā as defined above was wrong, and the cost of adopting bad policy has been enormous.
We need to remember this both in health policy and in other areas.
June 7, 2022
When there is another pandemic tans another country develops an effective vaccine, you might suddenly be very happy that there is an international agreement to share the vaccine.
June 7, 2022
You forgot to say ‘SAFE and effective’, Mike. Or perhaps you know full well that a vaccine trialled for just 100 days, the government’s current stated aspiration, could hardly be called ‘safe’?
June 8, 2022
Or not.
June 7, 2022
tans? And!
June 7, 2022
‘The purpose of the instrument is to strengthen global
cooperation in order to better protect the UK from the health, social and economic impacts
of pandemics. We want to agree UK priority areas such as improving transparency, timely
data sharing and supporting equitable access to vaccines and treatments.’
In what ways could WHO improve on direct action by UK, and in what way could more equitable access to vaccines be made when supply will always be via contracts with Pharma?
June 7, 2022
Maybe we’ll find out what not being a signatory could mean when the next pandemic – and it may be far worse – hits, eh?
June 8, 2022
Yes, we should look forward to taking our own decisions on the next WHO-redefined ‘pandemic’. Such as on whether it’s another false alarm like swine flu. Such as whether it merits locking down and vaccinating the whole population, or following a focused protection policy to safeguard the vulnerable. Such as – just imagine it !- carrying out a cost/benefit analysis of measures we might want to take. All the things we couldn’t do, if we were being dictated to by the WHO.
June 7, 2022
What bit of “legally binding” does this MAGGIE THROUP not understand? What advantage to the UK is there in signing such a treaty? “supporting equitable access to vaccines and treatments” – had we followed this during the pandemic we could not have given the vaccine to UK citizens first but would have had to share our supplies equally with the rest of the world. Would providing a level playing field in health treatment open free access to our NHS or is this policy already in place?
I don’t believe a word this woman or our government says. I have lost all trust in them.
June 7, 2022
Of course international treaties diminish national sovereignty as otherwise there wouldnāt be any point in them.
Of particular concern are lockdowns and āsupporting equitable access to vaccines and treatments.ā
No Parliament has the mandate to sign an international treaty without a specific referendum on the issue
June 7, 2022
Re your last line, where does it say that in the UK “constitution”?
June 7, 2022
Do we actually live in a liberal democracy?
Or not?
If we do the government should be enacting the will of the people. Full stop.
But we are ignored on every count and battered back with a fake moralityā¦āracistā etc.
WE are asked to explain and justify our will.
Yet the government should merely carry out our wishes.
Or it should unmask and admit to what it really is.
June 7, 2022
Anything like this is just about control and money. The UN is a deeply corrupt organisation as was shown by the pandemic. I had hoped that its attitude then would cast doubts about its lies on “Global Warming” but it seems that religion is too deeply embedded.
Bad news about Boris. He’ll feel invulnerable now, so who knows what madness he and Nut-Nut will perpetrate?
Keir Starmer must be laughing his head off. A vapid, ineffective little man is now guaranteed a position of power.
June 7, 2022
It is good news about Boris surviving.
He may have some lapses and a mistaken economic policy but he is a man of many exceptional talents, indeed genius such as we have not seen in our lifetimes in British politics.
Boris is not a conventional British Conservative and many resent that. Most Conservatives would rather lose elections than annoy anyone, especially establishment types. Unlike them Boris understands and does what is necessary to win rather than what is nice. I applaud that.
He negotiates for Britain better than anybody else.
If it weren’t for him despite their bravery the Ukrainians would have been conquered or practically conquered by now. While other British politicians would have cheered for Ukraine, as Biden did, nobody else would have dared to irritate and undermine Putin’s nuclear threats by salami slicing(not even resolute leaders like Thatcher and Churchill were that cunning)Putin’s army by in stages sending ever more sophisticated Western weaponry to help Ukraine. Other countries who wouldn’t otherwise have done so followed where Boris led.
As for the next election, Boris is the only Conservative who just might win it. The economic situation will necessarily be dire then. Boris is the only Conservative who is fervently supported by a significant segment of the electorate-they would proselytise informally among their families and friends to support him. He is also the only Conservative likely to fight hard on the ground of social(e.g. immigration, transgenderism) more than economic differences between the parties. That might just work.
June 7, 2022
Even if true, it is pointless. The only thing I am intereted in is transparency and however you wrapped it up the likes of China would still lie or obverscate. This proposed treaty would merely foster complacency and be a dangerous waste of time.
Keep a waking watch and keep vaccine government controlled research facillities on standby.
June 7, 2022
This is a better answer than many you have had from Ministers, and on the face of it a real undertaking to bow to your superior judgement. On the other hand one can’t help thinking of all those Prime Ministerial assurances we had through the decades about our sovereignty in relation to the European Project. This will need constant watching and pouncing.
June 7, 2022
“and supporting equitable access to vaccines and treatments.”
These are vacuous words to curry favour in all the right fora. Why the use of the superfluous word “equitable” when no such thing exists or is intended? If a country is in a position to give away treatments and vaccines, and others to receive them, then there is not “equity”. Charity is the correct word to use.
June 7, 2022
Why is it necessary to sign anything beforehand, when all that is needed is sensible co-operation between countries at times of crisis?
If a neighbour’s house catches fire, I would not first ask myself whether I’m on good terms with her, or whether she has helped me out when I needed it: I would call the fire brigade first and then offer her temporary shelter, on the grounds of decent community behaviour first and then self-protection (I wouldn’t want sparks to set my house alight).
June 7, 2022
I think they are looking down the wrong end of the telescope. The greatest problem appeared to be a lack of proper border controls and quarantine and a willingness to quickly close the border to specific countries.
Attempting a global approach will surely not work considering the world is populated by very different cultures who do things in different ways.
June 7, 2022
We were reassured by your government that there would be no constraints on trade between the UK and Northern Ireland.
Who decides who the World’s experts are on health matters? The WHO told us masks made no difference, then they did, they told us it wasn’t a pandemic then it was. They criticised Trumps’ no travel from infected areas then changed their mind. The WHO also diverged from their own pandemic planning and response.
Is it a good thing that the whole world be like sheep following a world order rather than trying different responses to see which works best and just stop travel from outbreak areas until contained?
June 7, 2022
Build back better is so old hat
The new cabinet strapline isā¦.āāGetting On With Businessāā
June 7, 2022
If we the taxpayer funded Goveās trip to USA to attend Bilderbergā¦shouldnāt we have the right to know what was discussed and agreed on our behave
June 7, 2022
+1
I bet they discussed who they could replace the PM with.
Someone a bit more amenable.
Someone who can push the agenda further.
In 2013 Johnson described Davos as āa great big constellation of egos involved in massive mutual orgies of adulation”.
June 7, 2022
Indeed we should, Glen. And Tom Tugendhat’s trip. But we don’t actually know if the taxpayer does pay for them, do we? An officially registered charity, the Bilderberg Association, apparently pays for “some” delegates’ travel expenses. However, the Bilderberg website says “Participants take care of their own travel and accommodation costs.” So who knows?
I wonder why Johnson has never attended a Bilderberg meeting.
June 7, 2022
Off topic, it seems increasingly pointless but I have just sent this letter to the Belfast News Letter:
“There would be no need for Boris Johnson to “act fast to overhaul the Northern Ireland Protocol” now (editorial, today), if he had pressed ahead with the new UK laws to protect the EU Single Market that were proposed in the Command Paper issued on July 21 2021.
As urged in a letter published here just a week later (“Bring in penalties to deter exports from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland which evade EU standards”, July 28 2021), asking “why not just go ahead and do that?” and then use that law “to underpin a system of export licences to regulate the carriage of goods out of Northern Ireland into the Irish Republic”.
By now, over ten months later, it could have been amply demonstrated that this rational and correctly focussed alternative to the irrational and obnoxious arrangements laid down in the protocol was both workable and effective in protecting the EU Single Market from unacceptable goods entering that trickle crossing the land border, equivalent to 0.02% of the EU’s GDP, and did not trigger the feared renewal of republican terrorism.
So why did Boris Johnson offer the prospect of these new UK laws to sort out the protocol, but then do nothing about them? Indeed, did he ever intend to do anything about them?
It should be obvious after yesterday’s vote that a Bill to disapply the protocol would now stand no chance of getting through the Commons, let alone the Lords, but it would be hard for EU sympathisers to object to a Bill designed to supplement the protocol and reinforce the protection afforded to the EU Single Market.”
June 7, 2022
The very good comments already made encapsulate my own views. Why is a legally-binding treaty deemed necessary if we are not to cede sovereignty and independence? I too am reminded of Heath.
In my view the WHO’s aims through this treaty and our own government’s compliance with it represent a threat.
June 7, 2022
Why are the gov.Uk advertising for a deputy director for developing Covid Pass? Why are digital ID passes being used for verification of DBS checks? Why are schools, hospitals and prisons going to adopt vegan meals? Why are insects being talked about for food?
Itās all quietly being developed in the background.
June 7, 2022
Dear Boris just do what we voted for Brexit independence and a real conservative low tax and small bureaucracy government. You are not as popular down on the street as you think and we need protection from you and your wife before the country falls apart spiralling into an economic basket aka with your virtue signalling.
Ps please get a decent haircut showing you have grown up not looking you had party again. Basic stuff .
June 7, 2022
Errata obvious Economic basket case (after following Labour’s failed policies) maxing out your credit for our hard earned work.
June 7, 2022
Ukretired. Good post.
June 7, 2022
It was clear that the Biden administration, backed by the UK was promoting a binding agreement where the WHO would define a pandemic and the measures to be taken by all who signed up. Johnson is a supporter of the WHO and doubled our contribution when Trump withdrew the USA contribution. This answer is backtracking waffle following the non Western countries refusing to be pushed into the rules based order suiting the American and British jabbing and drug industries.
June 7, 2022
The problem, Sir John, is government (and in this I include both the civil service and ministers) stupidity, naivety, complacency and desire not to ‘rock the boat’ internationally. As a result what happens is that the government agrees to things proposed by foreign governments, and especially when these are gathered together in some international organisation, thinking that there can be no harm in it and there’s nothing to worry about. After all, they reason, these foreigners are our friends, they’re intelligent, democratic, reasonable people, and they’re not going to try and do anything that will cause us problems. So the UK government blithely signs up to things, not understanding the full consequences and implications. And then when those foreign governments or organisations start applying the agreement in a way we don’t like we just shrug and say ‘oh dear, that’s not what we had in mind, but we’ve signed up to it now so we can’t go back and there’s nothing we can do.’
I give you Exhibit A, the NI Protocol. This is what ALWAYS happens. We just have to STOP signing up to things!!! Or, if the government is determined to have some international cooperation, the agreement must EXPLICITLY say that no government can be asked to do ANYTHING that it does not agree to. It’s called sovereignty. I wish Boris the Traitor would understand the concept.
June 7, 2022
The problem with Covid-19 was that China hid or destroyed data, was slow at admitting the problem and persecuted those who reported the disease. No international treaty or agreement will change that behaviour. So the objective is unachievable as far as any diseases originating from China.
June 7, 2022
In theory, you ought to be absolutely right, AP. It should be a level playing-field. But in practice, who is to say China won’t do whatever it wants as usual, while the WHO imposes its treaty on other countries? It would be similar to what happens with carbon emissions and net zero, after all.
If challenged about whether China was breaking the treaty, the WHO could send an investigative team to Beijing to find out, and sure enough, find that it wasn’t doing anything wrong. Nothing to see, just like the WHO found no evidence of the Wuhan lab leak.
Also, I expect China would be perfectly happy to see a treaty mandating draconian conditions to be imposed on Western countries, in order to force them even further into economic decline, as with Covid lockdowns.
June 7, 2022
Like others commenting above, I don’t see the need to sign a legally binding Treaty, especially given the dubious reputation of the WHO. Moreover, why is the Government so keen to sign up before the COVID enquiry has even reported on the efficacy/harms of following the WHO’s recommendations?
Thank you, Sir John for pursuing this matter with the Government and sharing Ms Throup’s reply.
June 7, 2022
What do I think of it? – An inverted pyramid of Pfeffel! He wonāt sign up to any āinstrumentā which binds us, but heāll sign up to this Treaty. What a muppet!
Zorro
June 7, 2022
In my lifetime the WHO has always been there. The letter states a generality and cannot be specific as no such treaty has been called to read.We need transparency and a preventative health connection between countries. We need to monitor such disease as Covid and now Monkey Pox. Why the negativism and suspicion? . When there is something on the table to read ; it will be scrutinised.
June 8, 2022
Remember Gordon Brown sneaking off to sign a treaty to prevent it being properly scrutinised by an incoming government?
June 8, 2022
But that’s not today. It has already been stated and wo betide anyone who repeats past mistakes.
June 7, 2022
Had enough of legally binding treaties, including this con. It demands attention to detail, not something in evidence from this government. Not our fault Guv, we had to do it, it’s in The Treaty ! It’s not democracy, this appears to be being forced on us. 152690+ signatures on petition 614335, waiting 22 days for debate date. Will it be debated and how much more money will we be pumping into this organisation. A cursory glance at the UK’s ever generous monetary contributions ( Assessed Contribution plus Voluntary) to the WHO for 2020/21 shows us up there near the top. Another case of ‘ we don’t believe you’
June 10, 2022
I agree from our point of view but may be useful for other countries to comply.Needs much thought before pen to paper.
June 7, 2022
Off-topic, but this may interest your readerrs. I have just learnt that the crown symbol which, to great fanfare, the government announced it was bringing back to pint glasses, is (i) purely decorative, and (ii) purely voluntary. It has NO official status or significance whatsoever. The old EU ‘CE’ marking is being replaced with a new ‘UKCA’ one. Bonus points to anyone who knows what that stands for. It’s ‘UK Conformity Assessed’, if you are interested. Except, of course, that CE is NOT being replaced by UKCA in Northern Ireland, which as we know has been surrendered to the EU which now controls it, and where CE will continue to be legally obligatory.
Why didn’t the government take the opportunity to replace the bureaucratic and soulless UKCA mark with the Crown mark, redolent of our proud and glorious history and heritage, not just on pint glasses but on ALL other items that must meet government measurement standards? And also extend this to NI, to prove that this is still part of the UK and we will not be ruled by the EU? Instead, they have achieved exactly NOTHING. Can you believe the waste of time and effort to end up with ZERO accomplishment? We really are governed by a cretin as prime minister. And yet 211 Tory MPs continue to believe in him. WHY? In God’s name, what the hell has he achieved? NOTHING.
June 7, 2022
Has anyone yet worked out just how many of the 148 are Remainers ?
The real agenda here is to replace Boris with a Remainer like Hunt. Every leader of very party in the Commons would then be someone who wants to get us back into the EU.
You can write your own script from there……………………..Maybe a Grand Coalition with Hunt as PM and Starmer as Deputy PM ? A neat trick to bypass the need for a second referendum ? Very democratic !
June 7, 2022
Before agreeing to do anything with the WHO I would suggest reading and listening to these doctors, scientists and academics on the pandemic and the role of the WHO. These people were effectively silenced by the government and social media. Their findings from the global data analysis make grim reading for the government, who may have needlessly tanked our economy.
What struck me in a recent TV interview with Nick Hudson of PANDA was that he said Covid was a SARS variant and we had seen SARS in around 2005. However despite this the WHO insisted on changing the name and not referring to SARs at all, even to the extent of replacing scientific papers on their website which referenced SAR’s. Not forgetting of course their fulsome praise for the Chinese.
Would I trust the WHO….no is the answer.
https://www.pandata.org/
June 7, 2022
My comment seems to have disappeared?
What a surpriseā¦ not!
Good job I took a screenshot
A blog which censors comments is dishonest, there should be guidelines as to what is acceptable and what is not, it destroys the validity of this blog
June 7, 2022
And will be awaiting moderation for ever and a day
June 8, 2022
L_C, Given the quality of your interventions, I donāt think we will miss much.
June 7, 2022
If you check out Section 4.2 of the ”Pandemic Preparedness Treaty” in the House of Commons Library, you will see that….
”the initial proponents of the initiative, including the UK, EU, and others have supported a legally binding treaty at this stage”
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9550/CBP-9550.pdf
So it looks that the Johnson administration is facing in two different directions at once on this subject!
Sarah
June 7, 2022
Sir John.
You ask what do we think of that.
Well I’ll tell you.
We do not TRUST our politicians. We do not trust our Civil Servants, or the media, or the ‘Global Bodies’ that the politicians are seeking to sign us up to.
The only reason I am glad Johnson has survived ‘The Vote’ is that the alternative contenders in the Party are worse. Oh, and of course the alternative Main Parties are also worse.
June 7, 2022
Don’t believe them.
They have a track record which quacks like a globalist dreaming of a vaccine passport , digital money, social credit score ,a stasi thought police state, and criminal laws that seem only to apply unevenly. Why is J Assange not released? Surely he has a claim for asylum. Especially given i hear some of Jan 6th protestors still have not been charged or released.
Why have legislation if it has no binding effect?
Use the legislative time for removing EU laws & Treaties ( so we can control our borders) which are binding on UK and organs until removed.
Fix the NIP or ditch it.More direct democracy.
Sell or close the BBC.
June 7, 2022
I see that HS2 is to get smaller
June 8, 2022
glen cullen: “I see that HS2 is to get smaller”
The one thing about HS2 that won’t get smaller is the bill. It’s been an astronomically expensive boondoggle, that – truth be told, we won’t have the electrical capacity to operate.
June 7, 2022
Why have I been left out? Comment Lifelogic.
June 8, 2022
It seems to me that the effect of our long sojourn in the EU has been to bring forward a political class who predominantly are no longer competent to legislate for the country, having grown used to simply rubber stamping EU proposals. That is why they seek refuge in international treaties, allowing them to pass the buck for what goes wrong instead of amending legislation where necessary. The same can be said of the large contingent of Remain supporters who voted against Boris: they want the infantile security of imposing EU laws so they don’t have to think for themselves – they don’t have to weigh the pros and cons of one course against another. They are no longer capable of doing so.
It did not take any international treaty for UK scientists to work on vaccine development. A treaty would only have hindered the work of Kate Bingham in getting the vaccines into production and distribution. It did not take an international treaty for the UK to make generous offers of aid in the form of vaccines. The EU tied itself in knots over its free movement laws. Absent the EU, the government sought refuge in “the science” a.k.a. SAGE, which turned out to be infested with rather extreme views about the claimed benefits of lockdowns, school closures, etc. The debate such as it was was in their secret meetings, not where it should have been, in Parliament and in public, including on television which instead adopted the role of disseminating propaganda.
There was doubtless a faction of those who voted against Boris who did so because they fear the consequences of this style of government on our cost of living and energy crisis, and hope that a replacement might actually tackle the root causes instead of indulging in more tax and spend (Sunak is allegedly working out how to impose even more taxes on the energy sector, instead of how to reduce the subsidies and taxes that are pushing up costs directly and through the inefficiencies they promote). They are right to worry that pursuit of net zero will do irreparable harm to the economy and to standards of living, but it is hard to see that there are enough people with the necessary competence in Parliament across the parties to improve matters. We need a solution to that problem.
June 8, 2022
The reply to you is pernicious banalities and half-truths, which are worse than lies. Of course the UK’s sovereignty would be compromised by such a treaty – that is it’s entire aim and quintessence. Just as with Kyoto, Paris, and the various UN, G7 and Greencrap ‘Agreements’, the intention is to tie the nation’s hands and remove its independent action. Trump had the right idea about all these attempts by Lilliputians to tie down the large and powerful.
June 8, 2022
JR: “What do you think of this?”
When I voted for BREXIT, the last thing on my mind was that we’d immediately put our government into the hands of another non democratic, appointed by cronies, supra national outfit.
June 8, 2022
The idea of a “global health treaty” is a bad one. We saw with covid that many governments including our own were prepared to sign up to global initiatives even though the evidence at the time and subsequent did not support those initiatives. So it clearl doesn’t need a treaty to enable poor policy decisions.
The worrying thing is that this seems to confirm we are going ahead.
June 14, 2022
I agree this treaty is dangerous ground indeed. No one is talking about it ..nor are the media inclined to ..preferring other issues to focus on ..
The US recent amendments were voted down and surprisingly by countries who previously were more anti democratic who are now heading more democratic.(ie India, Africa China ) Interestingly those that voted FOR the amendments including the U.K. and many European countries seem to be doing an about turn from pro democratic policy towards a more tyrannical one just by way of voting to have these amendments put in ..that should raise alarm bells, because many countries who have been proud of their sovereignty and truly democratic society and governance , seem rather fed up with that and are favouring a long term strategy that in affect favours a one world governance regards health, climate etc that would see an end to Independant , self governance with autonomy to make decisions and laws of their own choosing
This recent outcome of voting is positive because some of the countries that voted against are large , highly populated and have a huge distrust of globalist organisations like WHO due to their own past experiences. Also for the WHO to totally succeed in their plan of one world health control it would need the agreement of many of the countries that rejected the amendments .never the less we must not take our eyes off this ball for the sake of real Democracy , the future health of the U.K. now and for generations to come. Otherwise all those brave people who fought in the past wars to protect out freedom and democracy, gave their greatest sacrifice in vain.
John will continue to fight against this and it seems the U.K. gov do not feel a referendum for the U.K. public is appropriate ,, what ? Itās true .
We have two years now before this treaty will have amendments presented once again by the USA and they will do their utmost to reword, re tweek but essentially it will be the same amendments dressed up ..I note the U.K. mainstream media were silent on this treaty meeting , whilst everyone was distracted by a Ukraine and the Jubillee there has been no public debate , no discussion within politics to the U.K. public ..absolutely nothing ..clearly the U.K. publicās opinion or input are not necessary so there you go…
June 8, 2022
Talking about health treaties. How much does the UK NHS invoice back to the EU for the patients treated using EHIC Cards? How much are we billed collectively by the EU. I believe the NHS should also help themselves to raise more money.
In 2021 the National Health Executive (the NHS) received an additional Ā£5.9bn which is roughly what the UK saved in EU membership charges this year. Total funding in the NHS is now Ā£176.5bn a whopping 27% increase from 2010 yet your government doesn’t seem to capitalise on this and people still believe the promise of the extra money to be spent on the NHS was provided when May provided it almost immediately.
Then we have the left-wing newspapers criticising your government for speedily recruiting an extra 19,977 doctors “Unpublished figures from the General Medical Council (GMC) show that 7,377 (37%) of the 19,977 doctors who started work in the NHS in 2021 had a British qualification. A total of 10,009 new medics learned medicine outside the UK and the EEA”
Can you explain what is holding back British universities increasing the number of UK doctors in training throughout the UK? This article says “Hospitals cannot recruit more homegrown doctors because the number of medical graduates the UK is producing has risen only slightly, from 7,180 in 2016 to 7,377 last year.” Why have our Universities only opened up an extra 197 training places? We hear all the time about degrees not paying back their student loans, aren’t Doctoral degrees one that does pay back? If a UK Doctor is taken abroad do you still get the graduate tax for the postgrad training? As other Countries do with postgrad funding.
June 10, 2022
The argument I feel is slightly more intricate than money spent and training requirements. Many papers over the years have been written( and I cannot be specific as I don’t intend to spend time researching this as I have to get to work to see patients , investigate, treat prescribe and refer) as to the value of the medical Dr Do we need Drs? ..it is said. The NHS is changing into specialisms led by a Consultant , sometimes a Nurse , sometimes a Dr. Medical training nowadays is all about research and less and less is hands on.The system is distancing itself from hands on medicine as all become little managers spouting out professorial evidence which will change in a couple of years. The GP’s haven’t got time to take blood in their consultation (or can’t) they haven’t time to undertake a speculum exam , they haven’t got time to do an urgent ECG , they haven’t time to do an ABPI , but the Nurse having the same time slot producing the same outcome has time to completes a consultation and do necessary investigative tests. The GP refers everywhere for these little tests and overweighs systems and waiting times. The locum Dr moves from place to place leaving un finished investigations ,instructions for follow ups and this adds up to a large amount of extra work for the ANP or In house GP. We have all trained in secondary care and some of the young medics are hard working and marvellous , but I think we have all seen the Nurse in A&E talking to the patients abut the load of her work . If the NHS can improve standards by using the expertise of the Nurse Clinician ( the Nurse having worked on the job plus taking necessary academic exams to prove he or she can do her job!) then we need more to work their way up to take more and more hands on specialisms.