Ambassador to the UK recalled after comparing Trump’s bid to end the war in Ukraine to the appeasement of Nazi Germany.
New Zealand has sacked its ambassador to the United Kingdom after the diplomat publicly questioned United States President Donald Trump’s understanding of the events that precipitated World War II.
The office of New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said on Thursday that High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Phil Goff’s position was “untenable” following his remarks during a panel discussion in London.
New Zealand’s ministry of foreign affairs said it was in discussions with Goff about his return home and it had no further comment to make.
Speaking at a Chatham House event featuring Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen on Wednesday, Goff compared Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine with the 1938 Munich Agreement that allowed Nazi Germany to annex parts of Czechoslovakia.
“I was re-reading Churchill’s speech to the House of Commons in 1938 after the Munich Agreement, and he turned to Chamberlain, he said, ‘You had the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, yet you will have war,’” Goff said during a Q&A session, referring to former UK Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain.
“President Trump has restored the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office. But do you think he really understands history?”
Declining to directly answer Goff’s question, Valtonen said Churchill had made many “timeless remarks”.
In a post on X, former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark criticised the rationale for Goff’s ouster as a “very thin excuse”.
Clark, who led New Zealand from 1999 to 2008, said she had heard many people draw similar parallels when she attended last month’s Munich Security Conference in Germany.
Speaking to reporters later on Thursday, Peters said he had made a necessary but “seriously disappointing” decision.
“We cannot have people making comments, which impinge upon our very future – no matter what the country is, whether it’s Niue, Samoa, Tonga, Japan or, dare I say it, the United States,” Peters said.
“When you are in that position – you represent the Government and the policies of the day. You’re not able to free think. You are the face of New Zealand,” he added said.
Goff did not immediately respond to a request for comment via his X account.
Before his appointment as the top diplomat to the UK in 2023, Goff served in several ministerial portfolios, including foreign affairs, and did two terms as the mayor of Auckland.