Theresa May is standing by Sir Kim Darroch, the British ambassador in Washington D.C. who insulted President Trump and suggested he could be in hock to “dodgy Russians” in leaked memos.
Prime Minister May’s spokesman insisted she “has full faith in her ambassador to Washington” and that British ambassadors “provide honest unvarnished assessments of politics in their country”.
The spokesman added that “Those views are not necessarily the views of ministers or indeed the Government” — emphasis added — and added, perhaps tellingly, that “the Foreign Secretary [Jeremy Hunt] has said this leak is not acceptable,” rather than the remarks themselves.
President Trump, who was branded “inept” and “incompetent” by Sir Kim, said of the diplomat: “You know, we’ve had our little ins and outs with a couple of countries, and I’d say that the UK… the ambassador has not served the UK well, I can tell you that.”
“We are not big fans of that man, and he has not served the UK well” he added.
President Trump subsequently wrote: “I have been very critical about the way the U.K. and Prime Minister Theresa May handled Brexit. What a mess she and her representatives have created. I told her how it should be done, but she decided to go another way.
“I do not know the Ambassador, but he is not liked or well thought of within the U.S. We will no longer deal with him”.
The Prime Minister’s support for Sir Kim in spite of the President, who had tried to be an ally to the former Remain voter while the European Union drove her premiership to destruction by imposing intolerably punitive Brexit conditions, is somewhat surprising, given sources close to the U.S. administration have made it clear his position in the capitol is “not tenable” and “no-one will ever take [him] seriously again.”
Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, who President Trump once recommended as British ambassador to the United States, said he was unsurprised by Mrs May’s decision to stick by Sir Kim, tweeting: “She would do, all Remainers together.”
Mr Farage had earlier recalled that Sir Kim was a committed europhile during his time as Britain’s ad hoc ambassador to the EU, once telling him that “It’s our policy that the European Union is a good thing.”
For now, Mrs May’s government, which should be coming to an end shortly when she is replaced as Tory leader, appears intent on hunting down the person responsible for the leak rather than repairing British-American relations.
Sir Alan Duncan, the europhile Minister of State for Europe who infamously opined that the vote to Leave the European Union was a working-class “tantrum” over immigration, went so far as to vow that the culprit would “regret the moment for the rest of their life” once discovered.
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