New Zealand’s top diplomat in the United Kingdom was fired after making comments about President Trump in London earlier this week.
New Zealand’s high commissioner to the U.K., Phil Goff, was terminated from his role after questioning Trump’s knowledge of history during an event hosted by an international affairs think tank, Chatham House, on Tuesday.
“The Ministry is in discussion with High Commissioner Goff about his return to New Zealand. We have no further comment at this time,” the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade wrote in an emailed statement to The Hill on Thursday.
During the Tuesday event, Goff said he was “re-reading Churchill’s speech to the House of Commons in 1938 after the Munich agreement,” referring to the ex-British wartime leader Winston Churchill, according to multiple outlets.
“He turned to [former Prime Minister Neville] Chamberlain and said: ‘You had the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor yet you will have war,'” Goff said, referring to Churchill’s 1938 speech.
In that speech, Churchill slammed Britain’s decision to sign the 1938 Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler, giving the Nazi leader permission to annex part of Czechoslovakia.
“President Trump has restored the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office, but do you think he really understands history,” Goff stated Tuesday.
Goff has served as the country’s high commissioner to the U.K. since early 2023.
New Zealand’s foreign minister Winston Peters’s spokesperson told The Hill that Goff’s remarks do not represent the viewpoints of the country and have made his position “untenable.”
“Phil Goff’s comments are deeply disappointing,” Peters’ spokesperson told The Hill in a statement. “They do not represent the views of the NZ Government and make his position as High Commissioner to London untenable.”
“We have asked the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Bede Corry, to now work through with Mr Goff the upcoming leadership transition at the New Zealand High Commission in London,” the spokesperson added.
The decision received some pushback from New Zealand’s ex-top official.
“This looks like a very thin excuse for sacking a highly respected former #NZ Foreign Minister from his post as High Commissioner to the UK,” former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark wrote in a Wednesday post on the social platform X.
“I have been at Munich Security Conference recently where many draw parallels between Munich 1938 & US actions now,” she added.
Updated at 9:14 p.m. EST.
