Navy Barred From Boarding Russian Ships After Lord Hermer Legal Advice
The Royal Navy has not seized any sanctioned Russian tankers because the Government fears it would breach international law following legal advice from Lord Hermer, making a mockery of Sir Keir Starmer’s pledge to “go after” the ships. The Telegraph has the story.
Vladimir Putin’s shadow fleet has been allowed to pass through the English Channel despite Sir Keir Starmer’s pledge, a fortnight ago, to “go after” the ships.
Since the Telegraph revealed on Wednesday that Putin had sent a warship to escort sanctioned vessels through the Channel, there have been mounting questions over the Government’s failure to stop Russian ships.
Now it can be revealed that Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, has given legal advice about how the ships could be tackled in British territorial waters to prevent the flow of sanctioned oil to Russia’s allies.
Under his advice, ships can be boarded by special forces and officers from the National Crime Agency (NCA), but no such operations have taken place because of concerns about breaching international maritime law, which sets a high legal bar for a state to board a foreign vessel.
Officials must present a legal case for each operation, which is known under international law as an “interdiction”, and prove that the vessel has evaded British sanctions.
Putin sent three more vessels through the Channel on Thursday, hours after John Healey, the Defence Secretary, revealed that Russia had run a secret submarine operation in British waters that threatened vital energy and data cables.
It also emerged that one of the Russian vessels that crossed the Channel earlier this week was feared to be carrying supplies for Putin’s armed forces.
On Thursday, Boris Johnson, the former Prime Minister, told the Telegraph that Sir Keir had to stop the shadow fleet and recover “some of the respect Britain has lost recently” over its military response to the war in the Middle East.
He said: “I think it’s pathetic. I don’t know why we don’t board these sanction-busting ships. They are fuelling Putin’s war machine and funding his slaughter of innocent Ukrainians and we have a golden opportunity to stop it.
“I think if we did, it would do a lot to recover some of the respect Britain has lost recently for our inability to defend our friends in the Gulf and use our bases in Cyprus.
“Putin is breaking the law – he knows he is, and he is laughing at us. It’s important to choke off Putin’s income. They need to restore a bit of pride in the British Armed Forces. This is not the fault of the Armed Forces – it’s the abysmal leadership of the Government.”
Worth reading in full.
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Boris, the empty vessel. Crawl back under your rock.
He had his chance to show he had the balls to stand up for his people when the covid hysteria hit. And he started out ok, but in the end the establishment crushed him like it crushes everyone who tries to go in a direction it doesn’t like.
So he really should just be quiet now. He had his chance. He failed. All his big talking now just makes him look like a silly, scruffy, yapping dog.
His card was marked immediately he got ‘Brexit done’. Even though it was a bit of a bodge.
I’m not sure he even started OK (as PM). I can’t think of anything that he got right. In the first few months he failed to turn up at a major flooding, he approved Huawei and was told by the USA to do a 180, and he gave the final go ahead for HS2. After that it was his Covid dictatorship. He was a waste of rations.
He got “The Legacy Act” superbly right, and will be honoured in history for keeping his promise to the British Army Veterans of The Northern Ireland War.
Scumbag Johnson has the blood of THOUSANDS of Ukrainians on his hands, flying to Kiev two days after the Ukrainians & Russians had initialed the Istanbul Agreement of April 2022 – a few weeks after Russian forces crossed the border (after YEARS of provocation of Russia).
He twisted Zelensky’s arm and destroyed an agreement which would have left Ukraine intact apart from Crimea, ensured Russia’s border would be free of American missile batteries, kept Ukraine NEUTRAL, just like prosperous Austria, and saved hundreds & thousands of lives, Ukrainian and Russian.
So what does he do today? He doubles down with his usual bluster and blowhard aggressive anti-Russian rhetoric, in an attempt to steamroller his own GUILTY conscience.
I am reasonably certain that Johnson if he were still god help us PM, would do anything to avoid interdicting these Russian ships.
Easy to sound off from the sidelines.
Fat useless cretin.
Whatever basis Hermer may have for such a claim the rules and laws (sic) were not introduced after the last GE.
So the Russians are breaking “international law” but we’re not allowed to do anything about it because it might break “international law”. Ok. It’s good that we have experienced grown-up politicians in charge, from a real political party, and not a bunch of useless amateur clowns from an upstart party, who would do real damage if they were allowed to be in charge.
If we had an effective military it would help, but as things stand Starmer’s bluff is being called.
Someone urgently needs to tell Lord Horseshit about the concept of “sovereign government.” Or maybe tell that to the people he’s trying to fool. Starmer doesn’t want these ships to be boarded because his spine is made up of jelly. And hence, his partner in crime when it comes to locking up Brits who dare to demand deportation of illegal immigrants makes some legally sounding noises to cover that.
When it’s more dangerous than the wife of a Tory councillor, the prime minister certainly doesn’t want anything to do with it.
Yeah, if we’re looking for someone to stop boats, I can tell you we’re looking to the wrong people.
Two-Fingers-Putin responds to Two-Tier-Keir..
… and sums up the opinion of the population of Britain.
Well done that man.
Instead of being the doughty bulldog, Britain is really a yapping chihuahua.
Nah. A chihuahua could give you a nasty nip.
Stalin Starmer & his Stalinist “judge” Lord Hermer are turning out to be just like the Marxist Gnome Lula & his Marxist “judge” Demon de Moraes in Brazil, helping usher in the Global Kritocracy = Rule by Judges.
But nobody voted for that.
The Hermeroid is an anti-British activist.
These people can do nothing unless someone or something else instructs them to, that is why Starmer and co are so desperate to get back into Europe so they can be told what to do and how high to jump by that abject failure Von der Layen.
It does make you wonder doesn’t it, that if this were WW11 or even the Falklands, and Starmer and Hermer were in charge, they would have ran every troop movement, ship voyage etc through International lawyers, and if any troops had shot and killed a German then our Soldiers would have been subjected to Starmers and Co trials.
These Men are not leaders, they are not even Middle managers, they are process driven, instruction takers, without someone else telling them what to do, and taking responsibility they are lost.
Frankly Putin could launch an attack and invasion on the UK tomorrow and we would be taken, we have no defences, no army to speak of, and a weak and cowardly group of men and women in Government. God help us all.
(Note – click on “read more” if the paragraph format has been squashed up; this restores paragraphs) The Russians are coming for us! the Russians are coming for us!. Having provoked Russia ever since we conspired to overthrow Ukraine’s President Yanukovich in 2014, we and the rest of NATO have armed & trained the Neo-Nazi Ukrainian regime to legislate against ethnic Russians in E Ukraine, killing thousands by shelling of civilians, especially in the city of Donetsk. ALL COVERED UP BY THE CORRUPT WESTERN MEDIA, who can then claim Russia’s final action against all this was an “unprovoked attack”. Today, Russian ships pass through INTERNATIONAL WATERS along the English Channel, just like the thousands of ships from the world’s countries do each week along the “world’s busiest waterway”. As for “illegal”, illegal says who? Who has agreed to put sanctions on Russian oil? Only the western powers and japan. Nobody else, certainly not the United Nations or the G20 grouping. As for giving up on trying to seize the Russian flagged tanker today, Hermer is just using a get-out technique by quoting illegality; the real reason is that the tanker is accompanied by the Admiral Grigorovich warship, described by one… Read more »
If anything we should be grateful the Russians are adding their oil to the world market. With the Straits of Hormuz closed, world market availability has tanked for how long we’ll never know. This is why TRUMP HAS REVOKED SANCTIONS ON RUSSIAN OIL. (Somebody please inform Starmer’s gang of misfits and idiots).
With oil at over $100 a barrel, petrol at £1.50 a litre, the removal of Russian oil from world markets would push things to $200 a barrel and pump prices over £2.00, at which point the British economy would collapse with hundreds of thousands of firms going bankrupt.
Certain “European countries” (no specifics here) & Japan are now quietly begging the once shunned Russia to send them oil, desperate as they now are. The Russians have refused to talk to the Japanese so far, and who can blame them, after the last ten years of political, economic & military aggression they have had to endure, not to mention the lives of their Mother’s sons by the thousand.
And all for what? All to (try to) deny Russia what America itself demands and makes sure it gets – NEUTRAL STATES ON ITS BORDERS.
Of course the unit should be litres, not gallons. Can’t edit a post here after about 5 minutes so no correction possible.
MODERATOR HERE
I have amended your earlier comment to change ‘gallon’ into ‘litre’
Thank ‘ee kindly:)
the Admiral Grigorovich warship, described by one journalist on a motor launch out there as “huge, and bristling with weapons”.
Anything looks “huge” from a motor launch. The ship is about half the size of a current German frigate (F125 class) and less well-armed. It’s actually even smaller and less well-armed than a British type 23 frigate.
Main difference between it and a British frigate, is the Russian one seems able to get out of port and do what it was designed for… i.e. stop anyone messing with shipping under your flag…
Internet fairly tales to the contrary notwithstanding¹, the non-task force supposed to shadow Russian ships in the channel is composed of two type 23 frigates, a River class offshore patrol vessel and a tanker.
¹ Something people who were never on a warship apparently don’t know: The service life of any warship is composed of fairly short (maybe 1 – 2 years) periods of active service interspersed with lengthy (six months or so) refurbishment periods where all the stuff which broke while at sea and which was fixed in a more-or-less improvised way the crew gets properly repaired. Among other things, this includes a thorougly de-rusting (salty air is not nice to metal) and proper renewal of the paintwork to at least slow down rusting during the next active period. Field (or rather, sea) repair of sizable rust spots is usually restricted to covering them with paint which is a neverending task for the deckhands — I certainly did my share of it.
Hermer would have ruled Dunkirk and D-Day illegal.
War starts at midnight under international law ?