Hurricane Irma: Boris Johnson flies into Caribbean to survey damage

Boris Johnson is en route to the British Virgin Islands and Anguilla following criticism over the UK's slow response to the Hurricane Irma disaster.

According to the BBC, the Foreign Secretary will “see the relief effort at first-hand, visit affected communities and meet local governors”. At least five people died on the British Virgin Islands during the category 5 storm.

The visit comes less than a day after Labour called for either Theresa May or Johnson to visit the area, reports The Guardian.

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Kate Osamor, the shadow development secretary, said yesterday: “The British people in the overseas territories deserve to see first-hand that the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary are doing everything they can to get a grip on this national disaster.”

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the Government “should have acted much faster” as the dangers had been “well-known” before Irma made landfall, reports The Independent.

So far, the BBC reports, around 900 UK troops, 50 police and more than 20 tonnes of aid have been sent to the affected British territories, which are self-governing but rely on the UK for defence and security and for protection against natural disasters. But the move came days after France and the Netherlands sent aid and politicians to their territories in the Caribbean.

Anguilla lawyer Josephine Gumbs-Connor told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that, in contrast to the French response on neighbouring Saint Martin, the UK’s response had been “sorely lacking”.

She added: “I am very disappointed. We are supposed to have a relationship – we are overseas territories, we are supposed to be of the same type of people as [those of] Gibraltar or the Falkland Islands.”

However, Defence Minister Michael Fallon dismissed the criticism.

“We weren’t late,” he said. “We pre-positioned a ship in the Caribbean for the hurricane season. It wasn’t by chance that Mounts Bay, a huge 16,000-tonne aid ship with marines, with a helicopter, with pallets of aid, was already in the Caribbean.”