Prime Minister Boris Johnson may travel to Saudi Arabia next week to beg for increased oil production as sanctions restrict Russian exports, despite the dictatorship executing 81 people en masse on Saturday.
As governments across Europe struggle to secure supplies of oil and natural gas, Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson is looking to the Islamic kingdom to replace oil supplies previously sourced from Russia.
This is despite the fact that the Saudis executed 81 people in a mass execution on Saturday.
People can be publicly executed for “crimes” including apostasy and sorcery under Islamic law in Saudi Arabia by medieval and even pre-medieval methods such as stoning, although the preferred method of execution is beheading with a scimitar.
According to Sky News, Prime Minister Johnson looks set to personally appeal to Saudi authorities for more oil sometime next week, and although Downing Street has apparently stressed that the trip is not yet confirmed, Conservative Party members have supposedly urged Johnson to push for increased supply.
Britain is currently facing a spiralling fuel crisis, with Sky reporting the price of petrol topping £1.60 a litre, or $7.87 a gallon, mainly as a result of ongoing international tensions with President Vladimir Putin’s Russia over the war in Ukraine.
While the United Kingdom is no doubt in need of alternative fuel sources to ease the burden on the British taxpayer, Johnson’s potential trip to Saudi Arabia is somewhat undermined by the sudden surge in executions within the country.
Saudia Arabia executed 81 people on Saturday for a variety of different alleged offences, ranging from murder to terrorism.
It marks the single biggest mass execution in modern Saudi history. It is likely most had their necks severed with a traditional sword, although execution by firing squad is also becoming popular in the kingdom due to a shortage of trained swordsmen to carry out the bloody work.
“These individuals, totalling 81, were convicted of various crimes including murdering innocent men, women and children,” the dictatorship’s interior ministry asserted when announcing the killings.
“Crimes committed by these individuals also include pledging allegiance to foreign terrorist organisations, such as ISIS, al-Qaeda and the Houthis.”
The Telegraph reports one expert as saying that the Saudis will use Johnson’s request for more oil to wring out concessions from Western nations.
“It is going to drag, drag the West along and use the high oil prices to extract some concessions and build leverage,” the publication reports Dr Sanam Vakil of Chatham House’s Middle East programme as saying.
Despite this, the fact Boris Johnson may be able to get an in-person audience with Saudi officials means he is doing far better than U.S. President Joe Biden, who has reportedly had his phone calls completely ignored by senior government members of both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Biden had criticised both countries in the past over their human rights abuses, and — unlike Britain — suspended arms sales to them, in part because of reported war crimes in Yemen.
“Can you imagine? He phones them, and they don’t pick up,” said America talk show host Trevor Noah of the matter. “And you know what, you can say what you want, but this would have never happened to Donald Trump. Never.”
“No one was ever ignoring Donald Trump’s calls… because if you ignored Donald Trump’s calls, you didn’t know how he would respond,” Noah observed.
“Maybe he’d send an angry tweet, or maybe he’d just, like, ban your country from everything. You don’t know.”
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