Express victory as aid to North Korea is stopped
FOREIGN Secretary Boris Johnson last night ordered the immediate suspension of foreign aid to North Korea in a major victory for the Daily Express.
He acted after public outrage over Britain’s bloated overseas commitments and the escalation of the basket case regime’s nuclear weapons programme.
The UK has funnelled £4million of Official Development Assistance to the communist state since 2010 – during a period when it has ratcheted up tensions with the West.
Official documents show that last year the country – run by dictator Kim Jong Un and labelled a pariah by the international community – received £216,000 in handouts from Britain.
The Foreign Office said: “The Foreign Secretary has instructed officials to discontinue funding for all aid projects in North Korea.
“We remain resolute in our condemnation of the North Korean regime’s human rights abuses.
“North Korea’s continued attempts to develop nuclear weapons are unacceptable. We remain at the forefront of international efforts to impose sanctions on the regime.”
Mr Johnson acted after 75,000 Express readers joined our crusade to Stop The Foreign Aid Madness.
The campaign has highlighted a string of outrageous expenditures forming part of the UK’s annual £13.4billion aid programme.
The crusade calls on Prime Minister Theresa May to scrap the Government’s arbitrary target of spending at least 0.7 per cent of Britain’s annual income on foreign aid and urgently invest money in underfunded services at home, such as the NHS and social care.
Yesterday the Daily Express revealed that Zimbabwe was given nearly £100million in foreign aid payments last year.
Britain also increased its handouts to Pakistan from £374million to £463million last year – despite it having space and nuclear weapons programmes.
Campaigner John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “The UK is still spending much more every year than we collect in taxes and so we are lumping future generations with trillions of pounds of debt.
“But politicians still seem to think it is acceptable to send mind-boggling sums to countries with nuclear weapons programmes.
“We should scrap the aid targets immediately and focus on what good aid can do, rather than how much we spend.”
To call for the abolition of the foreign aid target, visit the UK Government website: petition. parliament.uk/petitions/200292
ANOTHER day, another insane revelation about our foreign aid madness. The latest is that of all the extraordinary recipients, we sent £200,000 to North Korea last year.
This is the same North Korea being led back into the Stone Age by Kim Jong-un, the same North Korea threatening the West with nuclear obliteration, the same North Korea that is rife with human rights abuse under one of the most autocratic regimes in the world.
Last night, thanks to the Daily Express’s crusade shining a light on this insanity, the Foreign Office said they would no longer be handing over your money to the North Koreans.
For pity’s sake, stop the foreign aid madness.
It is making us the laughing stock of the world.