Boris Johnson calls for his own plane to promote post-Brexit Britain
2 min read
Boris Johnson has said he needs his own plane as Foreign Secretary in order to boost Britain’s post-Brexit trade prospects.
Speaking in Argentina, the Foreign Secretary said he and other Cabinet ministers needed another aircraft as the Prime Minister’s £10m Voyager was rarely available.
Mr Johnson, who travelled to his South American five-day visit on commercial flights, said the new plane could be used by Cabinet ministers on Brexit business.
And he added that while the British public would not necessarily back “some luxurious new plane”, it need not be “exorbitantly expensive”.
“But if there’s a way of [getting a plane] that is not exorbitantly expensive then yes I think we probably do need something,” he told the visiting press.
“What I will say about the Voyager, I think it’s great, but it seems to be very difficult to get hold of. It never seems to be available. I don’t know who uses it, but it never seems to be available.
The Foreign Secretary added that it was “striking” such a plane did not yet exist and suggested that it could be a different colour.
He added: “And also, why does it have to be grey? The taxpayers won’t want us to have some luxurious new plane.
“But I certainly think it’s striking that we don’t seem to have access to such a thing at the moment.”
Commons Treasury select committee chair Nicky Morgan hit out at her Conservative colleague’s suggestion, while criticising the infamous figure on the side of the Vote Leave bus on post-Brexit health spending.
“This must surely be a late April Fool’s story,” she told the Sun.
“How much does a new plane and fuel eat into Boris’s famous £350m a week for the NHS?"
Labour MP Wes Streeting told the paper: “The idea that when the Government is cutting police and school budgets that they’d throw taxpayers’ money away on something like this is outrageous - but it tells you that Boris Johnson is only ever thinking about Boris Johnson.”
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