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PMQs: Theresa May implicitly criticises Boris Johnson for failing to back Kim Darroch – live news Theresa May implicitly criticises Boris Johnson for failing to back Kim Darroch – live news
(32 minutes later)
This is from the Labour peer Andrew Adonis on the removal of Kim Darroch.
Kim Darroch’s removal, at the effective direction of Trump, is a testament to Brexit BritainIt’s how we used to treat China & India in times past
Back in the foreign affairs committee Sir Simon McDonald, head of the Foreign Office, says he has served as an ambassador twice. He says diplomats use ‘diptels” (diplomatic telegrams) when they want information circulated quite widely in the system. They are not used for information that is particularly sensitive. But they are there if an ambassador wants to pass on information not being picked up by the media.
Here are comments from three Labour MPs on Kim Darroch’s resignation.
From Ben Bradshaw, a former Foreign Office minister
The shameful forcing out of Kim Darroch after Johnson failed to back him shows Johnson as PM would be nothing more than Trump's lap dog. What a humiliating prospect for our United Kingdom. #brexitshambles #finalsay #PeoplesVote
From Bill Esterson
The resignation of Kim Darroch, our US ambassador shows that the UK government is happy to let the US President bully them. Contemptible from our government. https://t.co/kKr5YGNpvi
From Yvette Cooper, chair of the home affairs committee
Appalling it has come to this. Kim Darroch is a serious & honourable public servant who was doing his job. British representation across the world should not be decided by hostile security leaks or bullying belligerence from abroad https://t.co/nq8zWzxT1J
The Conservative MP Bob Seely asks McDonald if he accepts that it looks as if only a relatively small number of memos were leaked, rather than a large cache. McDonald says he does not want to comment.
And Tom Tugendhat, the committee chair, asks McDonald if he has met his counterpart in the American embassy recently. McDonald said he did have a meeting. They had a “free and frank” exchange of views, he says.
Labour’s Chris Bryant goes next. He asks McDonald thinks there will be more leaks.
McDonald says he is “braced” for further revelations. “I fear there may be more,” he says.
Back in the committee Labour’s Ian Murray asks what the Foreign Office would think about having a political appointee as the next ambassador to Washington.
McDonald says there is one in post already, Ed Llewellyn, the ambassador to Paris.
He says political appointees are subject to security procedures after their appointment.
Q: What would happen if they failed?
McDonald says that has not happened before. If it were to happen, he would have to have a difficult conversation with the PM, he says.
Lord Kerslake, the former head of the civil service, said Kim Darroch’s resignation will lead to soul-searching across the Foreign Office and he criticised the failure of the former foreign secretary Boris Johnson to offer the ambassador his backing. Kerslake said:
Darroch did nothing wrong ... We cannot pander to Trump’s insecurity. There is going to have to be a lot of soul searching in the FCO as to how we arrived at this point.
Asked whether Johnson’s lack of support may have been a factor in Darroch’s decision, Kerslake said:
It was depressingly predictable for Boris. I wish that he had stood up [to the president] and been more forthright. Boris will rely on robust advice from ambassadors if he becomes prime minister. Hunt gave a much better answer to this question [in the ITV debate].
Back in the foreign affairs committee Sir Simon McDonald, head of the Foreign Office, says diplomats have been “shaken” by what has happened.
Asked if he thought the establishment should stand should to shoulder with a diplomat like Kim Darroch, he said of course. He said the Foreign Office was grateful for what Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt have said about this.
On a campaign visit to a pub in London this morning - alongside Brexiteer and JD Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin - Boris Johnson was asked about John Major’s threat to go to court to stop Johnson proroguing parliament. (See 8.52am.) Johnson replied:
What we are going to do is deliver Brexit on October 31, which is what I think the people of this country want us to get on and do.
I think everybody is fed up with delay and I think the idea of now consecrating this decision to the judiciary is really very, very odd indeed.
What we want is for Parliament to take their responsibilities, get it done as they promised that they would.
They asked the British people whether they wanted to leave in 2016, the British people returned a very clear verdict so let’s get it done.
McDonald says the most sensitive diplomatic memos are only circulated to between five and 10 people. But every computer has a forward button, he says.
McDonald says the Foreign Office will pursue who was responsible for this leak with all means at its disposal.McDonald says the Foreign Office will pursue who was responsible for this leak with all means at its disposal.
And he says diplomats must continue to give frank advice to London. But he will urge people to think again about what can be done to ensure their communications are secure, he says.And he says diplomats must continue to give frank advice to London. But he will urge people to think again about what can be done to ensure their communications are secure, he says.
This is from Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former communications chief.This is from Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former communications chief.
Have known @KimDarroch for years. He worked for Labour, coalition and Tory governments with total professionalism. His career has been sacrificed to the madness of Brexit, the venality of @BorisJohnson and the narcissism of @realDonaldTrumpHave known @KimDarroch for years. He worked for Labour, coalition and Tory governments with total professionalism. His career has been sacrificed to the madness of Brexit, the venality of @BorisJohnson and the narcissism of @realDonaldTrump
Back in the committee McDonald says some of the leaked memos were “diptels”, diplomatic telegrams, that are circulated quite widely, and others were email letters, which have a much smaller Whitehall readership.
Here is the full quote from what Sir Alan Duncan, the Foreign Office minister, told the BBC about Boris Johnson.
Boris Johnson - a former foreign secretary and he hopes to be the future prime minister - has basically thrown our top diplomat under the bus,
There are a lot of people in the Commons who are very, very angry and feel that he has lost so much respect for having done what he has done.
His disregard for Sir Kim and his refusal to back him was pretty contemptible and also not in the best interests of the country he is trying to lead ...
Commenting on Johnson’s failure to defend Darroch in the ITV debate last night, Duncan said:
For someone who wants to lead, let alone unite, the country, that was contemptible negligence on his part.
He has basically thrown this fantastic diplomat under the bus to serve his own personal interests.
Q: What is the process for appointing a new ambassador?
McDonald says the standard procedure is for the post to be advertised, candidates to be interviewed, and then decisions taken by the foreign secretary and the prime minister. But that process is not always followed when a new ambassador to Washington is being appointed, he says.
McDonald says Darroch knew that the government was committed to keeping him in place.
But Darroch decided to go anyway, he says.
Sir Simon McDonald, the head of the Foreign Office, has just started giving evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee about the Kim Darroch affairs.
He starts by saying that Darroch decided to resign partly because of the pressure on his family.
And he says that, in his 37 years as a diplomat, he can think of no other example where a friendly government has refused to deal with a serving ambassador, in the way that President Trump said he would refuse to deal with Darroch.
McDonald says there have been occasions where a government has refused to accept a proposed ambassador in the first place.
Q: Has the UK ever had difficulties with America before?
McDonald says the last time there was a problem like this was in 1856, when the Americans objected to the British ambassador recruiting Americans to fight in the Crimean War.
PMQs - Snap verdict: Jeremy Corbyn had a good case to make on legal aid cuts, and he presented it quite well - being only moderately unsettled by Theresa May’s attack over antisemitism - but it was still something of a lost opportunity for him, highlighting how his lack of dexterity at PMQs continues to hold him back. A more strategic leader of the opposition would have prepared questions on Kim Darroch, to drive a wedge between May and the person who will almost certainly be leading her party two weeks’ today and a first-rate parliamentarian would have rewritten the script at the last moment, after Darroch’s resignation was announced, to hammer Boris Johnson with lines we are now hearing from fellow Tories. (See 12.41pm and 12.45pm.) But why should he follow the media, you might ask? Aren’t legal aid cuts more important than the career of one civil servant? Yes they are. (Read the brilliant The Secret Barrister.) But PMQs is a media event, and if Corbyn had chosen go focus on Darroch, he would have got his attack lines into the top of the news bulletins. As it is, his legal aid critique is unlikely to get much further than Facebook. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but you can’t chalk it up as a communications victory.
Boris Johnson has said he regrets the resignation of Kim Darroch. Describing Darroch as “a superb diplomat”, he went on:
I think whoever leaked his diptels (diplomatic telegrams) really has done a grave disservice to our civil servants, to people who give impartial advice to ministers.
I hope that whoever it is, is run down, caught and eviscerated, quite frankly, because it is not right that advice to ministers that civil servants must be able to make in a spirit of freedom should be leaked.
It is not right that civil servants’ careers and prospects should be dragged into the political agenda.
In PMQs Sir Vince Cable says Theresa May’s last job will be to recommend to the Queen who her successor should be. How will she be sure that that person can command a majority in the Commons?
May says, whoever wins the Tory leadership contest, they will make an excellent PM.
From my colleague Jennifer Rankin
2017: Ivan Rogers resigns after hostile briefing, with no protection from a PM pursuing fantasy Brexit.2019: Kim Darroch resigns after hostile leak, with no backing from a PM candidate pursuing fantasy Brexit.
This is from Peter Ricketts, a former head of the Foreign Office.
Kim has been an outstanding public servant with a distinguished career in the highest-profile jobs. It should not have ended like this. He has been taken out by an act of political sabotage. What does this say about the state of our country? https://t.co/ybgU1QaNSL