Donald Trump has hit back at the UK ambassador to the US after sensitive memos were released in which the envoy called the US president incompetent, inept and insecure.
Mr Trump said the ambassador, Sir Kim Darroch, "has not served the UK well" in secret diplomatic emails, which were obtained by The Mail on Sunday.
The memos revealed Mr Darroch’s scathing assessment of the Trump administration.
He said the administration had become “uniquely dysfunctional” under Mr Trump because of “vicious infighting and chaos”, before questioning whether it “will ever look competent”.
“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,” he wrote.
Mr Darroch also said the US policy on Tehran was “incoherent and chaotic” and he challenged the president’s publicly stated reason for calling off air strikes Iran after it shot down a US drone.
Unease has been high between EU states and the US on Iran, as Washington has threatened more sanctions and European leaders hesitated to impose penalties, instead urging Tehran to keep to the 2015 nuclear deal that America pulled out of last year.
Earlier on Sunday, the British government announced that a formal inquiry would be held into the leaking of the diplomatic memos.
“We’re not big fans of that man and he has not served the UK well,” Mr Trump said in New Jersey on Sunday.
“So I can understand it and I can say things about him but I won't bother.”
The president’s aides also called for Mr Darroch to be sacked.
The British Foreign Office did not dispute the veracity of the memos, with a spokesman saying that “we pay them [ambassadors] to be candid”.
“Our team in Washington have strong relations with the White House and no doubt these will withstand such mischievous behaviour,” the spokesman said.
But British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt tried to distance himself from Mr Darroch’s words, saying that they were “a personal view”.
“It’s not the view of the British government. It’s not my view,” Mr Hunt said.
“We continue to think that under President Trump, the US administration is not just highly effective but the best possible friend of the United Kingdom on the international stage.”
