Johnson hits out at Kremlin and Corbyn

POLITICS: Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has hit out at the “torrent of absurdity” from Moscow following the Salisbury nerve agent attack – and accused Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn of being the Kremlin’s “useful idiot”.

BORIS JOHNSON has hit out at the “torrent of absurdity” from Moscow following the Salisbury nerve agent attack – and accused Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn of being the Kremlin’s “useful idiot”.

The Foreign Secretary said the Kremlin was peddling an “avalanche of lies and disinformation” following the attack which left Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in hospital.

And he stepped up the Tory attack on Mr Corbyn, claiming the Labour leader was lending “false credibility” to the propaganda from Moscow by refusing to say “unequivocally” that the Russian state was responsible for the Salisbury incident.

Labour hit back, claiming that Mr Johnson had “made a fool of himself and undermined the Government” by misrepresenting the findings of the Porton Down laboratory on the source of the novichok chemical agent.

Mr Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, were left fighting for their lives after being found unconscious on a park bench in Salisbury on March 4.

The former spy is said by medics to be improving rapidly and no longer in a critical condition while his daughter has said she is growing stronger by the day.

But the Foreign Office has said the pair are likely go have “ongoing medical needs” and thoughts in Whitehall have turned to what happens when they are well enough to leave hospital.

There has been speculation that the Skripals could be offered new identities and a life in the USA.

It comes as Mr Johnson accused Mr Corbyn of supporting the propaganda campaign launched by Vladimir Putin’s government. “There is only one thing that gives the Kremlin succour and lends false credibility to its propaganda onslaught. That is when politicians from the targeted countries join in.

“Sadly, I am driven to the conclusion that Jeremy Corbyn has joined this effort.”

But a Labour spokesman responded: “Jeremy Corbyn has repeatedly said the evidence points to Russia being responsible, directly or indirectly, and that the Russian authorities must be held to account on the basis of evidence. Boris Johnson has made a fool of himself and undermined the Government by seriously misrepresenting what he was told by Porton Down chemical weapons experts.”

Mr Johnson’s broadside came after Russia formally requested a meeting with him to discuss the Skripal case. The Russian government said it hoped the UK would “engage constructively” with the request for face-to-face talks with ambassador Alexander Yakovenko.

But the move was branded a “diversionary tactic” by the Foreign Office.

Meanwhile Moscow’s ambassador to the UK is preparing to request a meeting with Scotland Yard over its probe into the suspected murder of a Russian businessman in London.

The embassy accused British officials of deliberately withholding information about Nikolay Glushkov, 68, who was found dead in his home in New Malden last month. An inquest heard he died from compression to the neck.

Mr Glushkov fled Russia after being accused of fraud when he was deputy director of the Russian airline Aeroflot.

Last year, during a trial in his absence, he was sentenced to eight years in a Russian jail, convicted of stealing £87m from the airline.

He was due to attend the commercial court in London to defend himself on March 12 – the day his body was discovered.

He has made a fool of himself and undermined the Government. A Labour Party spokesman, hitting back at claims by Boris Johnson.