The questions to Kerry, when they weren’t about the U.K.’s decision to leave the European Union, or the U.S. -U.K. special relationship, or global trade, were about Johnson.
Advertisement
Obama was visiting London at the time to urge the United Kingdom to remain inside the EU.
On Monday, Mr. Johnson faced a barrage of questions from us reporters about his comments.
At first, he tried gloss over his fiery language, saying there were more important issues to discuss.
The Prime Minister’s official spokeswoman said: “The No 10 custodians team, those doorkeepers, have done an excellent job over the last few weeks in particular of having to open that door to a lot of people arriving into Downing Street and we are proud of the way they do their role”.
Johnson and Mogherini met privately in Brussels on Sunday evening and “had a good exchange on the main issues on the agenda today”, the European Union official said.
“I’m afraid that there is such a rich thesaurus now of things that I have said that have been one way or another, through what alchemy I do not know, somehow misconstrued that it would really take me too long to engage in a fully global itinerary of apology to all concerned”, Johnson said.
At one point, he hung his head as a series of his insults were read out, and later cut off a reporter, indicating he’d had enough of the topic. Kerry will later meet Britain’s new Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
Comparing the EU’s alleged ambitions – the creation of a superstate – to those of Hitler, as Boris Johnson did in May, even if he said their methods were different, was judged spectacularly offensive. “Is the Mr Johnson you saw campaigning the type of man you think the UK, EU and United States needs right now at a time of so many challenges?”
“As Britain and the EU begin negotiating the new terms of their partnership, America is rooting for, and will do all we can to try to encourage and assist in the development of the smoothest possible transition and a highly integrated and collaborative UK-EU relationship”, he said.
“The people of Britain voted”. And we respect democracy.
At Monday’s foreign ministers’ meeting, Johnson “did not present his excuses” to his colleagues for those remarks, Ayrault said, but he added that he didn’t feel personally slighted. However, he added that it was important for the European Union to strike a trade deal with the U.S., adding there was no way for Britain to make a pact before Brexit negotiations had concluded. Gardiner Harris from the New York Times then told Johnson: “You have an unusually long history of…”
Johnson interrupted a US journalist, who was the third to ask him about his previous comments, saying, “Look, I appreciate your First Amendment, the freedom of the press, but let me repeat what I said”, before saying it was “more important” to “get on with it”.
Advertisement
He’ll just have to get over those awkward comments first.
