Kim Darroch, a former British ambassador to the US, has said Boris Johnson is fascinated and inspired by Donald Trump, and is intrigued by the US president’s patchy relationship “with the facts and the truth”.
In a new book serialised in the Times, Lord Darroch said Johnson must share the blame for his resignation as ambassador to Washington, which followed the leaking of diplomatic cables disparaging Trump.
Darroch wrote that Johnson had been “fascinated” by Trump on his visits to Washington as foreign secretary before he became prime minister, with particular focus on the president’s use of language.
This includes “the limited vocabulary, the simplicity of the messaging, the disdain for political correctness, the sometimes incendiary imagery, and the at best intermittent relationship with facts and the truth”, the former diplomat wrote.
In an interview accompanying the excerpts, Darroch was asked if any of those characteristics had rubbed off on Johnson.
“From what I hear from colleagues, this government pays a lot of attention to presentation, to language,” he said.
“But if you go back through the current prime minister’s history, he’s often said quite striking things. And he never apologises. So, Boris might have done this anyway, but certainly, having watched Trump in action, he wouldn’t have been put off.”
Trump had also considered Johnson “a kindred spirit”, according to the former ambassador.
Darroch said he told Johnson he was partly to blame for his resignation from his Washington post, following the leaking of a cable in which the ambassador said Trump was “inept” as president.
Johnson, who was then running for the Conservative leadership, repeatedly refused to say he would keep Darroch in the post during a TV debate on 9 July last year. Darroch resigned the next day and spoke with Johnson by phone.
“He said: ‘But why did you resign? Wouldn’t it all have blown over after a few weeks?”’ Darroch told the paper.
In answer to Johnson’s question as to whether the resignation was his fault, Darroch told him that “in part it was”.
After Darroch left the diplomatic corps following a 42-year career, Trump fired back with a range of epithets, calling him “the wacky ambassador”, “pompous”, and “a very stupid guy”.