Boris Johnson meets new submarine ‘Boaty McBoatface’ after being accused of going under to avoid row over Heathrow
Foreign Secretary has been called on to follow in his fellow minister Greg Hands’ footsteps and resign so he can vote against a third runway - but will instead be out of the country for Monday’s crunch Commons showdown
BORIS Johnson got to meet submarine “Boaty McBoatface” today as he faces accusations of ducking a Commons vote to avoid another Cabinet row over Heathrow expansion.
The Foreign Secretary has been called on to follow in his fellow minister Greg Hands’ footsteps and resign so he can try and block plans for a third runway.
But he will instead be reportedly out of the country for Monday’s crunch showdown, when the controversial aviation plans are finally put to MPs.
Yesterday Mr Hands, a minister in the Department for International Trade and longstanding anti-Heathrow campaigner, stood down so he could vote against a third runway.
It threw the spotlight onto Mr Johnson, who once said he would “lie down in front of the bulldozers” at the airport next to Uxbridge constituency.
He failed to comment on the situation yesterday, and today appeared at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, but only posed for pictures and did not speak to the media.
As well as posing next to “Boaty McBoatface”, an autonomous underwater vehicle named after an online poll, he also drove an unmanned boat in the harbour.
And the staff showed him a weather buoy for the research ship which the sub lives on, the RRS David Attenborough, which was renamed “Buoyris Johnson” for his arrival.
He was there to unveil the plan to bring together all of the Government’s international oceans work under a single strategy for the first time.
The sunny photoshoot was a world away from Westminster, where Labour have accused him of being "weak" for going out of the country on Monday so as to retain his job.
As the Government is in favour of a third runway, it is “whipping” its MPs to back it, and anyone who voted against them would have to leave their role.
Theresa May gave a lukewarm response to the news Mr Johnson would be away for the vote, saying he “will be what I would describe as the living embodiment of global Britain”.
And the Foreign Secretary was also blasted by Phillip Hammond, who continued their bitter public spat by insisting he is not the “enemy of Brexit”.
Two weeks after the Foreign Secretary was secretly taped accusing the Chancellor of frustrating our EU exit, he slapped him down last night to say he was instead the “champion of prosperity”.