... It may seem strange that Johnson’s very first executive decision on coming in to 10 Downing Street was to cancel the long delayed judicial inquiry into UK involvement in torture and extraordinary rendition. On the face of it, there were political attractions for Johnson in pursuing the issue. The policy of complicity in torture had been established by Tony Blair and Jack Straw, with as ever the active collaboration of Alastair Campbell. A judicial inquiry would hold them to account, and given they are not only New Labour but a leading Remainer posse, you would think Johnson would have pushed forward with the chance to expose them. Plus he likes to pose as something of a social liberal himself. So why was Johnson’s urgent priority to cancel the torture inquiry?

The answer is that scores of very senior civil servants were deeply implicated in British collusion in extraordinary rendition. Those directly guilty of complicity in torture include Sir Richard Dearlove, Sir John Scarlett, Sir William Ehrman, Lord Peter Ricketts and Sir Stephen Wright. It was Johnson’s fellow old Etonian, Sir William Ehrman, who chaired the series of meetings in the FCO on the implementation of the policy of getting intelligence through torture...

... It was not concern for Blair and Straw that led Johnson to cancel the judge led inquiry. It was the knowledge that Establishment insiders like Dearlove, Ehrman and Ricketts would be forced to give public evidence of their wrongdoing and could be liable to criminal proceedings. The judicial inquiry was promised by Cameron but both Cameron and May blenched at the shockwaves it would send through the ranks of the mandarins who run the country. Johnson has now used the opportunity of his advent, when nobody was paying much attention to anything but Brexit, to try to bury the subject completely and protect the Establishment...

... I got sacked for opposing torture and extraordinary rendition. Of those that supported it and abetted it, Lord Peter Ricketts is now Strategic Adviser to Lockheed Martin, so reaping the cash from his role in promoting wars that killed millions of innocents. Sir Stephen Wright is Senior Adviser to Mitsui & Co. Sir John Scarlett is a senior executive for Rupert Murdoch. Sir Richard Dearlove is Chair of the Board of Trustees of the University of London and a member of the far right Henry Jackson Society, among other things. The wages of sin appear not bad at all...

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/08/boris-johnsons-fake-radicalism/

... “The longer these questions remain unanswered, the bigger will grow the stain on our reputation as a country that believes in freedom, fairness and human rights,” said Britain’s then prime minister, David Cameron, when he announced a speedy, judge-led inquiry. Yet nine years on, we have only partial answers, and now the government has decided that we will not get any more.

The initial inquiry was cut short due to criminal investigations – though what it turned up, despite its limitations, was shameful enough. Instead of reopening it, the government punted the issue to the parliamentary intelligence and security committee, which it had previously deemed unsuited to the task. The ISC’s chair, Dominic Grieve, described “inexcusable” actions. The committee found UK intelligence agencies to be complicit in hundreds of incidents of torture and rendition, mainly in partnership with the US in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. Britain planned, agreed or financed 31 rendition operations. British intelligence officers consented to or witnessed the use of torture on 15 occasions. On 232 occasions the intelligence agencies supplied questions to be put to detainees whom they knew or suspected were being mistreated.

Yet the inquiry was conducted under such tight restrictions, including the inability to call key witnesses from MI5 and MI6, that the committee itself stressed that its report was not a full account. The government promised to consider a judge-led inquiry and respond within two months. Now, a full year on, it has said no...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/28/the-guardian-view-on-rendition-and-torture-a-shame-that-britain-cannot-erase

... That relations between London and Dublin are now strained is beyond dispute, though officials in Dublin insist that much of the noise is to be expected and aimed at a domestic UK audience rather than Ireland or the EU.

Still, following his appointment, it took almost a week for Johnson to place a phone call with Varadkar, who leads a confidence-and-supply coalition that – while shaky on a series of domestic issues – serves as a national government in all but name for the purposes of Brexit. When the phone call did proceed, both men adopted an uncompromising stance: Johnson insisting the removal of the backstop is a precondition for any deal, Varadkar adamant that the EU will not relent on the withdrawal agreement.

Varadkar rightly reminded Johnson of the British government’s obligation – as a co-signatory of the Good Friday agreement – to exercise its power in respect of Northern Ireland with rigorous impartiality. Johnson’s government relies, for the time being, on the support in the Commons of the Democratic Unionist party to prop up its narrow majority. The difficult parliamentary arithmetic, combined with Johnson’s inflammatory rhetoric, represents a serious challenge to the UK’s obligation to act as an honest broker in respect of Northern Ireland – the majority of whose citizens voted, like their Scottish brethren, to stay in the EU.

And although unionists are being comforted, for now, by Johnson, their confidence that a hard Brexit will not give birth to a united Ireland must also be fraying at the seams. This is not least because nearly two-thirds of the Tory party indicate in polling that they would rather sacrifice the union – and see Northern Ireland and Scotland leave it – than abandon Brexit...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/02/british-no-deal-brexit-irish-peace-unity