Boris takes a dig at Theresa May as he urges war-torn Libya not to make her mistake by holding early elections
The Foreign Secretary admitted that Britain's intervention in Libya had resulted in a 'tragedy'
BORIS JOHNSON took a dig at Theresa May today - telling Libyan politicians not to make the PM's mistake by holding elections too early.
The Foreign Secretary has been in Libya, talking to warring leaders who cannot decide which rival government should rule.
He urged them to get behind a UN plan to unite the country - rather than holding early elections which could lead to more division.
Boris joked that the Tories had learned the dangers of snap elections after Mrs May lost her majority in June.
He said: "We have had an election since I last saw you. It went more or less to plan. Well, not entirely to plan.
"It is a bit of a lesson, which is that if you are going to have elections, you have got to get ready."
Speaking after he returned from the war-torn country, Mr Johnson also:
- Admitted that Britain's intervention in Libya had resulted in a "tragedy"
- Refused to deny that RAF planes are killing civilians during the fight against ISIS in Syria
- Confessed that Britain will have to pay billions to the EU as part of a Brexit divorce bill
- Declined to back the PM's decision to include foreign students in controversial migration figures
- Slammed Donald Trump's comments on Nazi killers but insisted the President's state visit will go ahead
Mr Johnson said that Libya - now being fought over by three warring political groups - is a breeding ground for ISIS terror and uncontrolled migration.
He blamed some of the chaos on the botched intervention by the UK, US and France in 2011.
The Foreign Secretary told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The removal of Gaddafi didn't lead to the ushering in of a great new democratic age and that's obviously been a tragedy so far for the people of Libya.
"Things are starting to get a bit better - security is returning to Tripoli, business is starting again in Misrata.
"We were way overoptimistic about what happened when we got rid of Gaddafi - we thought the elections in 2014 would make things better and in fact they made things worse."
Boris described people smugglers operating from Libya as "the most evil, nauseating travel agents the world has ever seen" because of the rickety boats they use to transport vulnerable migrants.
The Foreign Secretary was asked whether British jets were involved in air strikes on the ISIS capital of Raqqa which the UN says have killed innocent civilians.
He refused to give specifics of RAF activities, saying: "Of course we are involved in the effort to liberate Raqqa."
Mr Johnson added that he opposed calls to halt the strikes because "the priority has got to be to get IS out of Raqqa".
But he admitted that Britain had changed its Syria policy by dropping its call for dictator Bashar al-Assad to quit before talks on a political settlement begin.
Boris said that even though Assad "has blood on his hands", he could continue as president if Syrians support him.
In a second veiled dig at the PM, Boris praised international students in the UK and refused to back Mrs May's controversial decision to keep them included in overall migration stats.
He said: "There is no cap on student numbers coming into this country."
When pressed on whether it is right to count students as migrants, he would only say: "That is the way they are currently counted."
The Foreign Secretary backtracked on his previous claim that the EU could "go whistle" over the prospect of a huge Brexit divorce bill.
He insisted he was only referring to reports the bill could go as high as £85million and admitted that we will have to pay something to Brussels.
Boris told Today: "Some of the sums that I've seen seem to me pretty high.
"Of course we will meet our obligations, we are law-abiding democratic people - we have to meet our legal obligations as we understand them."
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