A senior British diplomat in the United States has quit over Brexit with a blast at Boris Johnson and other ‘political leaders’ just a week before the election, it was revealed today.
Alexandra Hall Hall ended her 33-year foreign service career this week, saying she was not willing to ‘peddle half-truths on behalf of a government I do not trust’.
The 55-year-old, who worked as the lead envoy for Brexit at the British embassy in Washington, said she was ‘increasingly dismayed’ at the delivery of Brexit.
She accused politicians of a ‘reluctance to address honestly, even with our own citizens, the challenges and trade-offs which Brexit involves’, in a searing resignation letter obtained by CNN.
Ms Hall, whose job involved explaining Brexit to US politicians, is the second senior diplomatic figure to quit the mission in Washington in dramatic fashion this year.
Her extraordinary departure comes months after the UK’s ambassador Lord Darroch was forced to step down amid a storm over leaked memos in which he branded Donald Trump’s administration ‘inept and insecure’, prompting a slap down from the president himself.
Alexandra Hall Hall ended her 33-year foreign service career this week, saying she was not willing to ‘peddle half-truths on behalf of a government I do not trust’
She said she was ‘increasingly dismayed’ at the delivery of Brexit by ‘political leaders’ in the UK (Boris Johnson pictured today in Kent)
‘This second incident among UK embassy staff in Washington DC will fuel suspicions about the politics of other senior civil servants at one of Britain’s most prestigious diplomatic outposts.’
In her brutal resignation letter, Ms Hall Hall hit out at ‘the use of misleading or disingenuous arguments about the implications of the various options before us; and some behaviour towards our institutions, which, were it happening in another country, we would almost certainly as diplomats have received instructions to register our concern’.
She wrote: ‘It makes our job to promote democracy and the rule of law that much harder, if we are not seen to be upholding these core values at home.’
Ms Hall Hall, who was responsible for keeping US lawmakers informed about UK policy, did not name any specific politicians in the letter, but took aim at the current Conservative government.
She wrote: ‘I am also at a stage in life where I would prefer to do something more rewarding with my time, than peddle half-truths on behalf of a government I do not trust.’
Ms Hall Hall – who was obliged by her role to be politically neutral – insisted her decision to resign was not tied to her personal views on leaving the EU.
‘I took this position with a sincere commitment, indeed passion, to do my part, to the very best of my abilities, to help achieve a successful outcome on Brexit,’ she wrote.
Mrs Hall Hall was UK ambassador to Georgia from 2013 to 2016 before moving to the United States to work on Brexit.
A graduate of the University of Durham, where she studied politics and economics, she joined the foreign office in 1986 after becoming a fluent Thai speaker.
She has also worked in Bangkok, Delhi and Bogota.
Her Who’s Who entry lists her interests as travel, tennis, ski-ing, archery, dogs and ‘hard labour to convert a scrap of wilderness in W(est) Virginia, USA into the American answer to Sissinghurst, Kent’.
Sissinghurst is a famous for its gardens.
The UK’s ambassador Lord Darroch was forced to step down in July amid a storm over leaked memos in which he branded Donald Trump’s administration ‘inept and insecure’
Alexandra Hall Hall in 2016, when she was in the final year of a posting as the British Ambassador to Georgia
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: ‘We won’t comment on the detail of an individual’s resignation.’
When he stepped down in the summer, Darroch said he wanted to ‘put an end’ to the speculation over his future after his barbed comments about the Trump administration sparked an all-out diplomatic war between the US and Britain.
The leaked documents revealed Sir Kim called Mr Trump’s administration ‘inept’ – triggering the US President to retort that he was a ‘pompous fool’.
Boris Johnson was drawn into the row when he went on television and refused to rule out sacking the top diplomat.
Darroch was later made a peer by Theresa May in her resignation honours list.
Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesman Tom Brake said: ‘Alexandra Hall Hall’s resignation proves what we already knew. The Tories are simply peddling fantasy when it comes to Brexit.
‘They are failing to come clean on the fact that it is going to be nigh-on impossible to negotiate a new trade relationship by December 2020 meaning that the threat of a No Deal Brexit remains very much on the table.’