“We will no longer deal with him,” tweeted US President Donald Trump, further stepping up his attack on the UK’s Ambassador in Washington, Sir Kim Darroch. Earlier, the UK’s Ambassador, in leaked emails, described the current administration as inept and dysfunctional and questioned whether this White House “will ever look competent” but also warned that President Trump should not be written off. In the meantime, British Prime Minister Theresa May has been quoted as saying that she is in “full faith” in Sir Kim Darroch who criticised the Trump administration but she does not agree with his assessment. Apparently angered by Mrs. May’s support for the ambassador, Mr. Trump hit back at the PM, saying it was “good news” that the UK would soon have a new prime minister and describing her handling the Brexit as “a mess”.
In the emails dating from 2017 leaked to the media, Sir Kim said that reports about alleged “infighting and chaos” in the White House were no rumours but mostly a reality and policy on sensitive issues such as Iran was “incoherent, chaotic”. The UK’s Ambassador also warned that while Mr. Trump was “dazzled” by his recent state visit to the UK, his administration would still remain “the land of America First.” Therefore, “we don’t really believe this administration is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction-riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept,” Sir Kim concluded.
The PM’s spokesman stressed that the leak was “absolutely unacceptable” and No. 10 had made contact with the White House. A senior Conservative MP has asked the Metropolitan Police to open a criminal investigation into the leak. In a series of angry tweets, President Trump said that “we’re not big fans of that man and he has not served the UK well” and that Sir Kim was “not liked or well thought of within the US”. The US state department declined to comment on President Trump’s remarks. At this point, damage to relations between the UK and the Trump White House is considerable. There will be a large number of potential suspects behind this high-profile leak
