Brexit Party Chairman: UK Ambassador ‘Should Have Offered His Resignation’

The Brexit Party chairman Richard Tice addresses the first public rally of their European
DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty
Victoria Friedman

Brexit Party chairman Richard Tice MEP has said that the UK’s ambassador to the U.S. Sir Kim Darroch “should have offered his resignation” as soon as leaked diplomatic cables revealed his insulting remarks about President Donald Trump.

Sir Kim had called President Trump “inept” and “incompetent” in 2017 communications leaked on Saturday, with the President responding that the diplomat had “not well served” the UK.

Commenting on the remarks, Brexit Party chairman Richard Tice told Channel 4 news that the ambassador should have resigned, saying: “How can he retain any credibility whatsoever and continue in his job given he has basically humiliated and embarrassed us with our most important trading and security partner?”

When anchor Cathy Newman asked whether the diplomat was just giving an “unvarnished” report to the government, Mr Tice responded: “He accused the President of the United States of being indebted to ‘dodgy Russians’. He said he could never be seen as being competent. That is not unvarnished reporting, that is a subjective judgement.”

He added: “How can he retain his post? How can ministers truly say that they have confidence in him when clearly he has zero credibility? The man should have offered his resignation as soon as this came out.”

 

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage also called for the diplomat’s removal, later saying that someone from business should replace him to promote a post-Brexit bilateral trade agreement with the United States.

The President said on Monday that he would no longer be dealing with Sir Kim, with Bloomberg reporting that the White House had cancelled the diplomat’s invitation to a dinner with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and the Emir of Qatar on Monday. The Telegraph reports that the ambassador is set to be frozen out of a meeting between the UK’s international trade secretary Liam Fox with Ivanka Trump, President Trump’s daughter and adviser.

Mr Fox, who is in the United States this week, said that he would be apologising to Ms Trump personally when he met her on Monday, telling the BBC: “I will be apologising for the fact that either our civil service or elements of our political class have not lived up to the expectations that either we have or the United States has about their behaviour, which in this particular case has lapsed in a most extraordinary and unacceptable way.”

The Brexit-backing minister added: “Malicious leaks of this nature… can actually lead to a damage to that relationship, which can therefore affect our wider security interest.”

When asked about the official position of the British government, a spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said that she has “full faith in her ambassador to Washington”.

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