The leadership of the Conservative Party of Great Britain supports Prime Minister Boris Johnson as a candidate for the position of Secretary General of NATO.
This is reported by the British newspaper The Telegraph.
For example, the British MP, Richard Drax, a senior Conservative member of the Select Committee on Defence, said he would support the Prime Minister in this role if he wanted it.
David Jones, the former Brexit secretary, added: “Boris has effectively led the Westʼs response to Putin. It was Boris who went to Sweden and Finland and called on the leaders of both countries to apply for NATO membership, which they did, of course."
A candidate from Britain has long been considered for the role because of US distrust of any European Union figure taking on the role. Britain is also trusted by the Baltic states, and Johnson himself has won international recognition for helping to build an international coalition against Putin.
The post of NATO Secretary General is unanimously appointed by the member countries of the alliance. In this regard, a high-ranking representative of the British Ministry of Defense expressed doubts about the appointment of Johnson, because French President, Emmanuel Macron, will veto him.
The next head of NATO was supposed to be appointed in September of this year, but it was postponed for a year due to the war in Ukraine (before the war in Ukraine, Jens Stoltenberg officially refused to run for the next term as the Secretary General of NATO and agreed to head the Central Bank of Norway ). The last British politician to become NATO Secretary General was Defense Minister George Robertson (1999-2004).
- On July 7, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that he was stepping down as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party. He will serve as the head of the party and the government until a new one is elected. The head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Liz Truss and the former head of the Ministry of Finance Rishi Sunak are competing for the post of prime minister, the results will be announced on September 5.