U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner smiled widely and seemed to be holding back laughter at the news of Johnson’s appointment Wednesday, in a video that caught attention on the internet.
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Europe’s media reacted with incredulity, sarcasm and sometimes dismay on Thursday, July 14, to the news that top Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson is Britain’s new foreign secretary.
Johnson had a call with US Secretary of State John Kerry, where they pledged to work together as North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies and Kerry offered US support for “a sensible and measured approach to the Brexit process”, a US spokesman said.
But those supper plans, proposed by European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini to precede a routine ministerial council she will chair on Monday, have been thrown into disarray by the sudden acceleration in the British political process and the appointment of controversial Brexit campaigner Johnson.
And another new position, Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, has been filled by leave campaigner David Davis, who will manage intricate negotiations as the United Kingdom leaves the EU.
Amber Rudd, energy secretary under former PM David Cameron, was named home secretary the position held by May for the past six years.
Britain’s new foreign secretary is participating in the European Union’s foreign affairs council on Monday, less than a month after winning the argument to leave the bloc in the June 23 referendum.
In May, Boris Johnson angered many European allies by claiming the EU was pursuing a similar aim to Adolf Hitler in trying to create a super state. “This is about taking foreign policy responsibility beyond Brexit”, Steinmeier said. Asked what he expected of working with Johnson, given such comments, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said – to laughter – “you see that it’s an advantage not to have such a great command of the English language”.
Fox is a former defense secretary who ran against May to be Conservative Party leader. There will be a separate Brexit minister, David Davis, as well as a new department which deals with worldwide trade. “Now, it’s him with his back against the wall to defend his country and to clarify his relationship with Europe”, Ayrault said.
“On day one of Obama’s administration it was returned, without ceremony, to the British embassy in Washington”, Johnson wrote in the Sun newspaper. “That means fighting against the burning injustice that, if you’re born poor, you will die on average nine years earlier than others”, she said before pledging that “the government I lead will be driven not by the interests of the privileged few” but by the needs of ordinary citizens. We want to get rid of them. Look no further than former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, who once said, “The [UN] Secretariat Building in NY has 38 stories, and if you lost 10 of them today it wouldn’t make a bit of difference”.
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In a short session with reporters outside the British Foreign Office on Thursday, Johnson shrugged off in his typically colorful fashion the European expressions of horror at his appointment. For Prime Minister May’s chief objective in putting together her first Cabinet since assuming office on Wednesday is not to please foreign governments but, rather, to embrace all warring factions within her ruling Conservative Party and redirect the government’s attention to an ambitious agenda of social and economic change. -British relations – an irony since he was born in NY, and public documents released in May showed he was still a dual U.S.
