Resignation of UK Ambassador to USA

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I hope the House will understand if I hold back today from making any further comment on my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson). I said enough yesterday to make my position entirely clear.

In terms of the confidence we need to have in our officials and their morale, the permanent under-secretary in the Foreign Office, Sir Simon McDonald, had an all-staff meeting yesterday, which included people who were able to come in on phones and by video conference. The mood was palpable. There is deep upset, but a fantastic united defence of Sir Kim Darroch. I think and I hope that the very, very deft manner in which the PUS handled that meeting will have absolutely reassured our diplomats and officials everywhere that they have our full support. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about the leaking. I really hope that we find who did this, and that their name and the consequences of what they did become very, very clear indeed.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) on securing it. He spoke for almost the whole House, and certainly everyone in the country, as indeed did the Minister in his response, in expressing his dismay about the circumstances that have led to the resignation of Sir Kim Darroch—who has had to resign, let us remember, simply for doing his job and telling the truth about what is happening in Washington.

While Sir Kim is entirely innocent and can leave office with his head held high, there are many guilty parties in this affair who should be hanging their heads in shame. First, there is whoever is responsible for leaking the memos. Then there is Donald Trump, and his ridiculous temper tantrums. Then there is the outgoing Prime Minister, who has indulged Donald Trump so much but received nothing but disrespect in return.

For me, however, the biggest villain of all is the man who is about to become our Prime Minister. He had the chance on Tuesday night—not just once, but six times—to defend Sir Kim and oppose Donald Trump, but instead he made an active choice to throw our man in Washington under the bus. It was the most craven and despicable act of cowardice that I have seen from any candidate for public office, let alone someone running to be Prime Minister. It sends the worst possible signal to our diplomatic service abroad, and it should send warning signs to our whole country—if we thought that the current Prime Minister was bad when it came to her spineless attitude towards Donald Trump, then things are about to get a whole lot worse.

Will the Minister therefore ensure that a new ambassador to the US is appointed before the next Prime Minister takes office, so that we still have at least one UK representative willing to speak truth to power in Washington?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady—at least for her kind words about me. I do feel obliged to defend my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. I think that in these difficult times the relationship between the Prime Minister and the President has obviously seen us disagreeing on some things, such as the Iran nuclear deal, so it is inevitable that that relationship has needed a lot of work. But I do not think that my right hon. Friend has been spineless; indeed, I think that she has been very skilful. She has done her utmost, with a high degree of success, to ensure that the relationship has been functioning in the best possible way. The next ambassador will be appointed in the usual way: by the Prime Minister, on the Foreign Secretary’s recommendation, with the approval of Her Majesty the Queen.