President Trump doubled down on his criticism of the British ambassador to Washington D.C. Tuesday and the British government supporting him, revealing he’s been told the foreign office’s Sir Kim Darroch is a “pompous fool” while again hitting out at Westminster for having failed to deliver on the promise of the 2016 Brexit referendum.
The remarks follow a leak to the British media of confidential messages sent to London by the UK ambassador to the U.S., Sir Kim Darroch, who called President Trump’s leadership “dysfunctional”, “clumsy”, and “incompetent”. The comments were meant to be seen by senior British politicians and members of the civil service only, but they were published in a British newspaper at the weekend, prompting strong responses from both sides of the Atlantic.
President Trump wrote Tuesday of the “wacky”, “pompous fool” ambassador at the centre, but also focused on the failure of the British government to deliver on the will of the British people. Prime Minister Theresa May and others have stood behind Darroch during the controversy, with a spokesman saying the Prime Minister has “full faith” in the controversial diplomat.
This is not the first time President Trump has pointed out that his offers of support and advice on negotiating Brexit had been turned down by the British government. Breitbart reported in March when the President lamented Britain’s failure to take advantage of his counsel, telling journalists of the Brexit process: “I’m surprised at how badly it has all gone from a standpoint of negotiations, but I gave the Prime Minister my ideas of how to negotiate it, she didn’t listen to that and that’s fine but it could have been negotiated in a different manner.”
The United Kingdom voted in a national yes–no referendum to leave the European Union in 2016, but over three years later the country has still yet to withdraw, as the political elites in London and Brussels remain stuck in negotiations. While pro-Brexit politicians like Nigel Farage have insisted the best approach would be for the United Kingdom to leave fully without a deal, remain-supporting politicians like Theresa May have focussed their energies on engineering the softest withdrawal possible, bringing Britain out in name only.
President Trump’s latest comments on Ambassador Darroch follow others he made earlier in the week, when he said the U.S. would no longer be willing to deal with the British envoy, and again expressed his frustration over Britain not having yet left the European Union. He wrote then: “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.”
While President Trump has displayed clear animosity towards Darroch and the government for whom he works in these recent messages, they have also been underlined with messages of appreciation for Britain and the British, themes which have underlined his presidency where Trump has frequently praised the country of his mother’s birth. On Monday the President made one such remark when he wrote: “While I thoroughly enjoyed the magnificent State Visit last month, it was the Queen who I was most impressed with!”.
Prime Minister Theresa May is due to be replaced as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom within the next two weeks.