Philip Hammond has defended Boris Johnson’s failed bid to secure backing for tougher sanctions against Russia over the Syria chemical attack, as he accused other G7 nations of being “less forward-leaning” than Britain.
The chancellor, who was Johnson’s predecessor in the Foreign Office, said the UK would continue to make the case for sanctions, despite Italy, France and other nations blocking the idea at a G7 summit in Lucca, Italy.
Johnson’s failed bid to get backing for a tougher position against Russia’s support for Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, has led Labour to describe him as a liability for the UK who “undermines our credibility”.
Writing for the Guardian, Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, said the foreign secretary was “floundering without armbands, out to sea and out of his depth” while Theresa May is on holiday and offering him little help with the crisis.
But Hammond stepped in to defend Johnson on Wednesday. “The British government’s position has been, and will remain, to lead the way on arguing for a robust approach towards Russian aggression in Syria,” he told Sky News.
“We have been doing it for years and we will go on doing it. We have to make that case and we will continue making that case. Sometimes some of our partners are less forward-leaning than we are, but that won’t stop us making the case for what we believe is the right approach to dealing with Russia.”
On Tuesday, Downing Street insisted May fully backed Johnson after the 30-page communique from the two-day G7 summit failed to make any mention of Johnson’s proposal of imposing sanctions on key military personnel.
A No 10 source said the prime minister was pleased with the clear signal from the summit that the Assad regime could not be part of the political future of Syria – a point repeatedly made in the past by David Cameron – and its push for a formal investigation into the attack.
But speaking on Wednesday, Labour’s shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, said Johnson had erred in cancelling at the last minute a planned trip to Moscow to see his counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and instead focusing on the G7 meeting.
“The idea of going along to the G7 to try and put together a coalition around sanctions was never going to succeed. It was a bad policy decision by Mr Johnson. It should never have happened,” McDonnell told Sky News.
“He should have gone to Moscow. When he went to Moscow he should have been clear with the Russians just how much we condemn what Assad has done, and what they’ve done in support of Assad, but try to get them back to the negotiating table.
“I’m hoping the initiative now by the Trump regime and others is going to enable that to happen. It’s a pity Mr Johnson made such a poor judgment of this matter.”
McDonnell argued that May, who is on a walking holiday in Wales, should have considered taking full charge of the situation.
“I don’t begrudge anyone a break every now and again, but you’ve got to either recognise the seriousness of the situation and put your full attention to it – and I think that’s what the prime minister should be doing – or you’ve got to have confidence in the person that you send out to deal with the situation,” he said.
“What we’ve got at the moment is neither a prime minister properly engaged nor someone who anybody, even on Tory backbenches and, from what we understand, even the government’s own cabinet, has confidence in, with regard to Boris Johnson. I think we’re in the worst of all worlds as a result.”
McDonnell added: “To have these one-day, on-and-off policies from Boris Johnson every time he picks up a new idea, never really thinks it through, and then embarrasses our whole country on the international scene, to be frank, undermines our credibility in the future.”
Farron argued threatening sanctions against Putin was necessary but should not have been the main focus.
“The humanitarian imperative was – and remains – how to prevent the further massacre of the innocent,” he said. “So the discussion needed to be about no-fly zones, safe corridors and gaining the cooperation of regional powers – all massive challenges, likely to take up the energies of the G7 summiteers.
“Instead we had the Boris circus-show: lots of table thumping beforehand about how he was going to deliver sanctions (‘Boris is no poodle,’ his spin doctors briefed, a little hysterically), followed by that familiar quizzical expression at the post-summit photocall when he had delivered precisely nothing. Even fellow Conservative ministers have said, helpfully, that he has been humiliated, while No 10 has offered him every form of support short of actual help.”
However, Alistair Burt, the Conservative MP and formerly junior Foreign Office minister, said people should not fixate on Johnson’s career but focus on solving the Syria crisis.
“It’s extremely difficult but I think in the first place it’s not about Boris Johnson,” Burt told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday. “I’m disappointed there is this focus.”
“What is most important here is that we try to find a way to end this conflict in which one out of two Syrians have either died or been displaced. It is going to be very difficult. It does involve some difficult and distasteful calculations, perhaps with Russia and Iran, but the main focus should not be on an intergovernmental spat about whether or not Boris Johnson has been humiliated.”
A spokesman for Johnson was bullish about the G7 outcome, insisting the prospect of targeted sanctions remained on the table.
“The foreign secretary was the one this week at the G7 calling for tough action against those who have killed innocent people,” he said on Tuesday. “Some may criticise but it was simply the right thing to do to try to push other countries to punish war criminals and murderers.
“Frankly, it is completely shortsighted and wrong to claim this G7 failed to deliver. It unanimously agreed Assad has no future in Syria, that Russia must work to stabilise Syria and work with others, and everyone round the table agreed that sanctions should and would be imposed on those involved in the chemical weapons attack once an investigation happens.”
Downing Street said in a statement late on Monday that May had discussed Syria with Donald Trump, and the pair believed there was a “window of opportunity” to persuade Moscow to abandon Assad.
Johnson used the summit to table a plan, agreed beforehand in bilateral talks with the US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, that targeted sanctions could be applied to senior military figures deemed responsible for last week’s chemical attack.
But his fellow foreign ministers were unwilling to commit to fresh penalties before evidence was gathered and a legal case for action could be assembled.
