United Kingdom considered an “aquatic raid” on a warehouse in Netherlands in order to seize Covid vaccine AstraZeneca during the height of the pandemic, former and then UK PM Boris Johnson revealed in his memoir ‘Unleashed.’
In his memoir, Johnson said that 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,” Guardian reported.
Johnson held discussions with top military leaders in March 2021 about a potential plan. The strategy under consideration involved deploying rigid inflatable boats to traverse canals in the Netherlands, according to an excerpt from the book published in the Daily Mail.
“They would then rendezvous at the target; enter; secure the hostage goods, exfiltrate using an articulated lorry, and make their way to the Channel ports,” he wrote.
He was also warned by the officials that they would “have to explain why we are effectively invading a longstanding Nato ally,” as it was not possible to carry out the plan undetected.
To this, Johnson reflects: “Of course, I knew he was right, and I secretly agreed with what they all thought, but did not want to say aloud: that the whole thing was nuts.”
The Halix facility, according to his account, contained a substantial quantity of AstraZeneca vaccine, amounting to millions of doses. Despite the company’s persistent efforts, he claimed that these doses could not be successfully exported to the UK.
“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,” Johnson wrote.
In his view, the European Union‘s actions towards the UK were driven by “malice and with spite,” which he attributed to the disparity in the pace of the vaccination programs between the two entities, with the UK’s rollout progressing more rapidly than that of the EU.