Following accusations by the foreign secretary, the Channel 4 News team has issued a direct challenge to Boris Johnson. And now, people are waiting to see if he accepts their offer of an interview.
“Fair and square”
The foreign secretary had earlier tried to discredit allegations of election fraud that arose from the joint investigation by Channel 4 News and The Observer. He tweeted:
Observer/C4 story utterly ludicrous, #VoteLeave won fair & square – and legally. We are leaving the EU in a year and going global #TakeBackControl #GlobalBritain
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) March 24, 2018
Channel 4 News‘s head of communications Hayley Barlow was not impressed. She tweeted:
Please come on Channel 4 News on Sunday to explain how ‘utterly ludicrous’ the Vote Leave story is in your words https://t.co/degy0ikTIv
— Hayley Barlow (@Hayley_Barlow) March 24, 2018
Her tweet was retweeted by Channel 4 News anchor Jon Snow. And journalist Krishnan Guru-Murthy also threw down the gauntlet:
Then come on #c4news and answer questions in the studio. You still haven’t once since becoming foreign secretary. And as for legality shouldn’t you leave that to the electoral commission? https://t.co/rmP4IImDP1
— Krishnan Guru-Murthy (@krishgm) March 25, 2018
The allegations
Whistleblower Shahmir Sanni accused Vote Leave of overspending. Johnson was a figurehead of the organisation. And according to claims in The Observer, it made a £625,000 donation to a separate referendum campaign, BeLeave.
This money was registered as a donation. But Sanni claims the campaigns shared an office, and Vote Leave advised BeLeave on how to spend the money. Under electoral law, election campaign groups are not allowed to coordinate activities. If they do, the spending has to be capped as if it was a single campaign group.
All those named in the allegations have denied any wrongdoing.
Johnson in hiding
People quickly started speculating over why Johnson wouldn’t do the interview:
No way will Boris face a proper journalist with real questions.
On the evidence so far, he appears to only does pre-scripted sessions that seem to be pre-approved by Tory Central Office, so nothing too taxing…
— knowgum #FBPA #NHSLove | (@UKnoGum) March 25, 2018
I don’t think you’re his type of journalist @krishgm .
Think he prefers those over @BBCNews who don’t ask the hard questions..
Prove us wrong @BorisJohnson ?
— Darren 🌠 (@dbosint) March 25, 2018
Another Twitter user had a cunning plan to attract Johnson’s presence:
If you can find £160,000 then you could interview the foreign secretary over tennis. That seems to be the price of access.
— David Price (@Davepr65843219) March 25, 2018
Although, what would be the point?
Some people suggested there might be very little to learn from interviewing Johnson:
https://twitter.com/barryoconnor77/status/977934329434210305
He will just waffle big scoring scrabble words that actually mean nothing – Can you also ask him about that quote @BorisJohnson pic.twitter.com/PXQd408crh
— حاتم (@hatembomb) March 25, 2018
Others pointed out Johnson’s history of lying and blunders:
https://twitter.com/madge_paul/status/977957437511798785
This is from somebody who was promising £350 million a week for the NHS after Brexit
— John Cook (@cookjoh8) March 25, 2018
Cowardly
Ultimately, as other social media users have pointed out, Johnson’s position is cowardly. If the foreign secretary thinks it’s appropriate to lambast serious investigative journalism as “ludicrous”, he should take the interview.
The Channel 4 News team has issued a direct challenge to Johnson. We’ll just have to wait and see if he has the courage to accept.
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Featured image via screengrab – YouTube and Financial Times – Flickr
