FURIOUS MPs last night demanded that Donald Trump apologise for tweets abusing Britain’s ambassador to the US.
Seething over Sir Kim Darroch’s leaked secret memos to Whitehall branding him “inept”, the US president called Britain’s envoy a “pompous fool” and a “stupid guy”.
He won’t deal with Sir Kim again and the ambassador has been disinvited from an event.
America’s sensitive leader also stepped up his criticism of PM Theresa May herself, dubbing her “foolish” over Brexit and calling her negotiation “a disaster”.
But Downing Street again stood by Sir Kim Darroch and refused to recall him.
Foreign Secretary and Tory leadership contender Jeremy Hunt lead the fight back against Trump to brand his abuse “disrespectful and wrong to our Prime Minister and my country”.
Mr Hunt added in a tweet: “Allies need to treat each other with respect.
“Ambassadors are appointed by the UK government and if I become PM our Ambassador stays”.
The PM told the Cabinet yesterday that it was “absolutely right that we continue to give Sir Kim our full support”.
‘DISRESPECTFUL AND WRONG’
He was only doing his job when he branded Mr Trump “inept” and his administration “incompetent” as it’s vital ambassadors provide “honest, unvarnished assessments of the politics in their country”, Mrs May added.
A senior minister told The Sun: “We just have to let it play out. We are not going to be bossed about”.
After President Trump announced he will refuse to deal with Sir Kim on Monday night, the Washington DC ambassador was disinvited from a White House dinner for the Emir of Qatar.
To avoid another snub, Sir Kim also pulled out of a planned trip to the West Wing yesterday when he was due to accompany Trade Secretary Liam Fox on a meeting with Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and close adviser.
The PM’s official spokesman says Sir Kim will “be supporting Liam Fox in other ways”.
As the Whitehall-wide leak investigation began, spy chief Jeremy Fleming refused to deny that GCHQ had been called in to investigate whether it was a cyber hack by a hostile state.
I hope MPs from all parties will join me in demanding an apology
Tory Nick Boles
The director of the Cheltenham-based eavesdropping service said: “I can’t get into that. If they require our services, GCHQ can help”.
One line of inquiry is that Russia or Iran were behind the massively embarrassing leak to sew divisions between the UK and US.
MPs demanded an apology from Donald Trump in the Commons yesterday for his barrage of insults at Theresa May and Mr Darrach.
Dubbing them “disgraceful”, independent Tory Nick Boles said: “I hope MPs from all parties will join me in demanding an apology”.
The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee also began an urgent inquiry last night into the security of the Foreign Office’s communications.
Its chairman Tom Tugendhat has also demanded the police open an immediate investigation into the leak, which he dubbed “a serious criminal act”.
Mr Tugendhat added: “If envoys are fired for writing critically about their host government there would be no diplomats in Washington, London, Brussels, Rome, Paris, Moscow, Berlin, Beijing, New Delhi, Islamabad,… I could go on.
“Every envoy is critical of every host government. That’s their job.
Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told BBC Radio 5 Live that President Trump showed “adolescent behaviour of a most extraordinary degree”.
Mr Straw added: “I can’t think of another example of a leader of a major government behaving in this way”.