New Zealand has sacked its most senior diplomat in the United Kingdom for appearing to criticise US President Donald Trump during a lecture in London this week. Auckland said Phil Goff's position had become "untenable" because of his remarks at an event in London this week.
Phil Goff, New Zealand's High Commissioner to the UK, has lost his job over a question he asked the Finnish Foreign Minister to Elina Valtonen during an event hosted by the international affairs think tank Chatham House.
Valtonen spoke about Finland's borders with Russia and European security more generally in the context of Russian President Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In questions following her speech, Goff said he had recently re-read a 1938 speech in which British politician Winston Churchill had rebuked then-British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain for his signing of the Munich Agreement, which allowed Adolf Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia.
Churchill rightly said in the House of Commons that Chamberlain's concession to Hitler would do nothing to prevent war in Europe.
Goff went on to ask Valtonen whether she thought the new US president was fully aware of this history.
"President Trump returned the Churchill bust to the Oval Office. But do you think he really understands history?" Goff asked Valtonen.
The Finnish Foreign Minister replied that Churchill had made some "very timeless remarks".
Goff's exchange with Valtonen came at a time when world leaders continued to grapple with Trump's stance on the war between Russia and Ukraine. Critics accuse the new U.S. administration of favoring Russia, the aggressor, over Ukraine in its attempts to end the conflict.
New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said Goff's "disappointing" comments had made his position "untenable".
"When you are in this position, you represent the government and the politics of the time," Peters said. "You are not free to think, you are the face of New Zealand."
He added that Goff and officials at the country's London mission would be "working" on the upcoming leadership change.
Helen Clark, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, said at X that she was concerned about Goff's dismissal.
"It looks like a very flimsy excuse to sack a highly respected former NZ foreign minister as UK High Commissioner," she said, adding that similar historical parallels were heard last month at the Munich Security Conference.
Goff, who is a former mayor of Auckland, became High Commissioner to the UK in January 2023. He was appointed under the previous government of Jacinda Ardern.
euronews/ gnews.cz - RoZ
English 
Czech 
Spanish 
French 
Italian 
Russian 
Chinese 
German