Boris Johnson has discovered there is a hefty price to pay for high office.
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U.S. State Department Spokesman Mark Toner offered a diplomatic response Thursday.
She removed long-serving finance minister George Osborne and Brexit campaigner and justice secretary Michael Gove – and stunned onlookers by giving Johnson the diplomatic brief.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest says Obama isn’t seeking an apology from Johnson.
“This is something frankly that goes beyond a relationship, that goes beyond personalities and it is an absolutely critical moment in certainly England’s history, but also in the U.S. -U.K. relationship”.
In France, Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault Thursday branded his British counterpart a liar.
Ayrault also predicted that Johnson has an uphill struggle ahead of him remarking that “now it’s him with his back against the wall to defend his country and to clarify his relationship with Europe”.
John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, spoke to Mr Johnson by phone today and urged Britain to be “sensible”.
Mr Kerry’s spokesman said he had “stressed USA support for a sensible and measured approach” to Brexit.
His language was an apparent reference to Obama’s earlier warning that Britain would be in the back of the queue for those seeking trade agreements with the United States if it left the 28-nation EU.
He asked ministers to set out how United Kingdom manufacturers can help create “transcontinental zip wires to enable our new Foreign Secretary to travel cheaply and with low environmental impact and in the style he is accustomed to around the world”.
Boris Johnson was a leading figure in the victorious “Leave” campaign in Britain’s European Union membership referendum last month. “You can’t have the cake and eat it”, Whittaker said. You know it’s honest because of the crying face.
The source said several ministers felt the meeting was a “very bad idea”.
May, Britain’s second female prime minister, is undertaking a sweeping Cabinet shuffle on her first full day in office. After the “leave” campaign scored a surprise victory in the June 23 referendum, he seemed well positioned to succeed David Cameron as prime minister.
Mr Johnson is due to come face-to-face with his European colleagues and Mr Kerry, at a summit on Monday.
Ministers are due to talk about China, security and migration – but not Brexit.
He was quoted as saying: “Boris Johnson is a crafty party politician who managed to use the euroskeptic mood for himself”. “But now a completely different political task lies before him – taking on foreign policy responsibility beyond Brexit”.
“Some said it was a snub to Britain”.
Britain hasn’t yet formally triggered talks on exiting the European Union and it’s unclear when it will do so.
If Ms Cooper is right that Mr Johnson has been set up by Theresa May to be the scapegoat when Brexit negotiations go wrong, then Mr Johnson’s “administrative sloth” and his alleged lack of “ambition to do anything useful” may be just what the new prime minister wants.
New British Prime Minister Theresa May is clearing rivals from government as she assembles her new Cabinet team. Foreign secretaries in Britain have traditionally stayed in a supporting role, refraining from saying anything remotely off-the-cuff or contentious – but that may be a stretch too far for Johnson.
The “special relationship” between the two countries “transcends any single personality”, he said.
However, May has said Britain will need time to prepare for the negotiations.
The former London mayor is popular in Britain and well-known overseas, not least for a colorful use of language regularly directed at foreign leaders.
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Philip Hammond, the new chancellor of the exchequer, warned Brexit is having “chilling effects” on the financial markets and said business investment decisions are being put on hold.
