Junior Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan has lashed out at the frontrunner in the PM race, Boris Johnson, for failing to support UK ambassador to the US Kim Darroch in his spat with the US president.
In an interview with the BBC, the high-ranking diplomat indicated the irritation within his department. He accused the possible head of the UK government of betraying Darroch for his personal gain.
“He has basically thrown this fantastic diplomat under the bus to serve his own personal interests”, Duncan claimed, referring to Johnson’s appearance on a televised debate.
The British Foreign Office recently announced that its ambassador to the US, Kim Darroch, has resigned following the turmoil over the leak of the embassy's cables. The scandal is said to have made his work in the US “impossible”.
The leak, published in the British tabloid Daily Mail, suggested that he called Trump "inept and "incompetent" and branded his administration "dysfunctional, unpredictable [and] diplomatically clumsy". Following the publication, Trump slammed him on Twitter, warning that his administration is not "thrilled with a very stupid guy" appointed as the UK ambassador and saying that Washington would no longer be communicating with Darroch.
The UK authorities are now investigating the leak, Reuters reported, citing a Foreign Office top civil servant, saying that there is no evidence that hacking was involved. The whole affair has cast a shadow over UK-US relations.