Boris: We must take a hard line on knife crime
Foreign Secretary calls for greater use of stop and search to stamp out gang violence
BORIS JOHNSON has warned against “going soft” on knife crime as he called for more use of stop-and-search powers to end the “absolute misery” it causes.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, the Foreign Secretary said that police had to “take knives off the streets” and “come down like a ton of bricks” on gang leaders. He acknowledged that the approach, which he deployed as mayor of London, had proved controversial but added: “By God, it worked.” In a wide-ranging interview during this week’s Commonwealth summit in London, Mr Johnson also said that Britain must take a “liberal” approach to migration and attract the brightest and best. “A society that isn’t open to talent will die,” he said.
His comments came as Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, was yesterday facing calls from Labour to resign over the Windrush immigration scandal.
Theresa May apologised for the stress caused to those told they had to leave the UK. Her spokesman expressed confidence in Ms Rudd.
Last month, it was reported that Mr Johnson had strayed beyond his brief to raise concerns in Cabinet over the Government’s violent crime strategy.
His intervention comes amid growing fears among the Tories over a rise in violent crime, particularly in London, with suggestions that the Home Office is not being tough enough. Nearly 40 people have been fatally stabbed in London since the start of the year, with the number of knife offences rising by a fifth to 37,443 in the year to September 2017.
As home secretary, Theresa May introduced changes in 2014 that meant police were only allowed to stop people when there were “reasonable grounds for suspicion”. It led to a dramatic fall in the use of the powers.
In a clear criticism of Sadiq Khan, his successor as mayor, Mr Johnson said that there must be “very tough law enforcement”.
Recalling how he increased the use of stop-and-search powers after he became mayor in 2008, he said: “I remember vividly what was going on. It was an absolute nightmare. We were having about 28 or 30 kids killed every year, most of them in knife attacks.”
Mr Johnson said that he had focused on removing knives from the street while mentoring young people to stop them “getting sucked into gangs”.
He said: “We did two things simultaneously, and this is what Sadiq Khan needs to do. You cannot be soft on this.
“If people are going to go equipped with a knife, they are putting other people at risk and they are putting themselves at risk. You have got to stop them, you have got to search them and you have got to take the knives out of their possession. And we did that with Operation Blunt II. We took tens of thousands of knives off the streets.
“It was controversial, people said it was unfair, but, by God, it worked.
“I got serious youth violence down by 32 per cent. We cut the murder rate by 50 per cent. We got the murder rate down to fewer than 100 a year for several years running, which is amazing for a city of 8.5million.”
Mr Johnson also dismissed recent crime comparisons with New York. “In New York you have 300-400, perhaps even 500 murders a year,” he said.
Boris Johnson has suggested that the Government should make the “liberal” case for immigration and warned that “a society that isn’t open to talent will die”. And the Foreign Secretary told The Daily Telegraph that the EU referendum result was about “control” and having the ability to “call the shots”, rather than slashing migration.
As the Government faced a backlash over the treatment of post-war Windrush migrants, Mr Johnson said that once Britain leaves the European Union it must be open to talented workers if the UK economy is to “prosper and flourish”.
“Countries are democratically entitled to decide how open they should be,” he said. “That was the problem with the EU – it fundamentally took away people’s democratic ability to decide who could come.
“That was why it was right to take back control. It’s not about migration, it’s about control. It’s about who calls the shots. I’m a proud descendant not just of Turks but God knows what. We have prospered and flourished by being open.
“It is one of the myths of this thing. There are lots of people who voted Leave who are very liberal on migration, who shared my point of view, but see the democratic point of view. It’s about who’s running your country.
“If I, as a UK politician, believe there is a case for having talented workers in our country and being open and saying to the people of the UK, ‘look, we need software people from Hyderabad, we need Australian paramedics, we need German photographers because they add massively to our culture’, then it’s up to me as an elected politician to make that case.”
Mr Johnson said that there is a clear case for limiting the level of lowskilled migration, saying that previous Labour governments had failed to be “honest” with the public.
“Taking back control is having a managed migration policy that is in the interests of the British people,” he said. “Investing in the skills and the talents of people growing up in our country – that’s what people want to see. It’s bloody obvious.”
Brexit will be ‘pointless’ if we can’t diverge from the EU
Mr Johnson said there will be no point in Brexit if Britain is unable to “diverge” from the European Union so that it can strike new free trade deals after leaving.
The Foreign Secretary said Britain must “stay close” to the European Union while also finding the “space to do things a different way”.
His comments to The Telegraph come amid mounting concern that Britain could be forced to enter into some form of customs union with the EU in a bid to avoid a hard border in Ireland, as negotiators from the UK and Brussels are at loggerheads.
Mr Johnson, highlighting commitments made by the Theresa May in her Mansion House speech on Brexit in March, said “as ever our policy on cake is pro having it and eating it”.
He said: “The Prime Minister has given remarkable leadership on this. In all my time in politics, I don’t know any Tory party leader who has got such unity about a vision.
“The vision of Mansion House was very clear – it was to allow us to do proper free trade deals, offering our tariff schedules at Geneva as an independent trading nation able to strike deals with other countries, to cut our own tariffs.
“To decide our own duties, and so on, and simultaneously to have regulatory divergence from the EU.
“Without that your ability to do things in a different way if you want, and your ability to do free trade deals, there is very little point in Brexit. I think Theresa totally gets that.”
Mr Johnson insisted that he did not want “to diverge for divergence’s sake” amid previous suggestions that Britain could develop a Singapore-style economy, slashing taxes and undermining the EU.
“We are not seeking to be perverse, to undercut, to be regulatory mavericks of some kind or engage in any race to the bottom.
“But if you want innovation, if you want dynamism, if you want creativity, then you have got to have the space for doing things in a different way.”
He insisted that a solution could be found on the Irish border issue, adding: “On the Irish border you have got to be sensitive to the political echoes, to the memories that border evokes.
“And we can be, and we will be.”
Britain ‘turned its back’ on the Commonwealth
Britain made the “terrible mistake” of turning its back on the Commonwealth when it joined the European Union, Mr Johnson said.
Speaking as Commonwealth leaders gathered in London, Mr Johnson said that the UK was approaching the Commonwealth with a “new burst of energy” as it hopes to seal post-brexit free trade deals.
He said: “We remember what happened in 1973, we made this historic choice to get into the Common Market. But we made a terrific mistake. We turned our backs. Trade with Commonwealth countries went off a cliff. Literally, Australian farmers shot themselves as a result of the loss of markets in the UK. It was a very tough time.
He said that Britain will now “rekindle those friendships”.
“Every delegation I have met, they are all interested in the possibilities of free trade. I think we’re going to have a lot of fun and it will be, I hope, a really exciting period for the Commonwealth,” he said. “It’s a weirdly harmonious family. It’s very positive.”
Yesterday, Mr Johnson reaffirmed his commitment by appointing nine
‘Taking back control is having a managed migration policy that is in the interests of the British people .... It’s bloody obvious’
new Commonwealth diplomats in nations including Antigua, Grenada and Lesotho. The Foreign Secretary has secured a significant breakthrough at the summit with a commitment to ensure that all girls get a minimum of 12 years of education.
Highlighting his sister Rachel, he said: “My whole life has been driven by my consciousness of Rachel’s equal if not superior intelligence.
“Two-thirds of the 796 million people who are illiterate in the world are women. I’m afraid it’s about a sort of casual sexism. It is holding the world back.
“I think the great thing about this campaign [to ensure girls get 12 years of education] is it’s impossible to resist. No matter how secretly sexist they may be, it’s very difficult on a public platform to defend what is going on.”