U.K. Moves to Limit Fallout From Envoy's Leaked Memos on Trump

(Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Theresa May moved to contain the diplomatic fallout with the U.S., following the leak of memos written by the U.K.’s ambassador in Washington describing President Donald Trump’s administration as “inept.”

The Cabinet Office is leading an investigation into the leak after the Mail on Sunday reported the content of cables written by Kim Darroch, a career diplomat who’s been his country’s top representative in the U.S. since 2016. May’s spokesman, James Slack, told reporters on Monday the British government has contacted the U.S., calling the leak a “matter of regret.” He stopped short of saying the U.K. has apologized for the content of the memos.

“The leak is absolutely unacceptable and as you would expect contact has been made with the Trump administration saying this is unacceptable,” Slack said, adding that while May doesn’t share Darroch’s views, she retains “full faith” in him.

“The prime minister has a good relationship with the president,” Slack said.

Trump reacted angrily to the diplomatic communications -- known as diptels -- on Sunday. “We’re not big fans of that man, and he has not served the U.K. well,” he told reporters. “I can say things about him, but I won’t bother.”

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, who is due to meet Ivanka Trump in the U.S. on Monday, told BBC Radio there’s no reason Darroch shouldn’t remain in post, and called for the person responsible for the leak to be punished.

‘Unpatriotic’

“I don’t see frankly that this is an impediment to the ambassador being able to work in Washington,” Fox said. “Malicious leaks of this nature are unprofessional, they’re unethical and they’re unpatriotic because they can actually lead to damage to that relationship which can therefore affect our wider security interests.”

The most senior civil servant at the Foreign Office, Simon McDonald, told a committee of lawmakers in Parliament it is too early to tell how significant the impact is on the U.K.-U.S. relationship. “There is clearly significant damage that we must assess over the days and I suspect weeks and months to come,” he said.

Darroch, 65, is a former national security adviser to the U.K. government. His memos, and those of other ambassadors around the world, are sent via government email to relevant civil servants and politicians, with a classification level set according to their content. Foreign Office Minister Alan Duncan told Parliament the circulation list could exceed 100.

The Mail on Sunday reported that Darroch described the current White House as “uniquely dysfunctional” and given to “knife fights.” In the memos seen by the paper, Darroch didn’t rule out Trump being indebted to “dodgy Russians,” yet said that the president had frequently overcome a life “mired by scandal.”

Trump may “emerge from the flames, battered but intact, like [Arnold] Schwarzenegger in the final scenes of ‘The Terminator,’” Darroch wrote, according to the newspaper. “Do not write him off.”

State Visit

The leak comes after Trump traveled to the U.K. in early June to meet Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Theresa May, a visit in which he was treated to a state dinner. Darroch said Trump and his team had been “dazzled” by the pomp and circumstance surrounding the visit but remained self-interested.

The response to Darroch’s commentary cleaved along partisan lines. Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, a close ally whom the president once said would make a “great” ambassador to the U.S., called the incumbent envoy “totally unsuitable for the job.”

On Monday, Farage told BBC Radio that he himself wouldn’t be the “right man” to be ambassador but that he could be “very useful” in strengthening British ties with the Trump administration. The author of the Mail on Sunday report -- Isabel Oakeshott -- ghost-wrote “The Bad Boys of Brexit” for Arron Banks, a key donor to the Leave.EU campaign led by Farage.

“Experienced, capable and patriotic diplomats doing their jobs well by writing unvarnished analysis for their governments,” political scientist Ian Bremmer, head of Eurasia Group, said on Twitter. “Farage wants him sacked; he’d rather be lied to.”

--With assistance from Alex Morales.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kitty Donaldson in London at kdonaldson1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Stuart Biggs, Alex Morales

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