New Zealand fires UK envoy Phil Goff over Trump comments

New Zealand has fired its most senior envoy to the United Kingdom over remarks that questioned US President Donald Trump’s grasp of history.

At an event in London on Tuesday, High Commissioner Phil Goff compared efforts to end the war between Russia and Ukraine to the 1938 Munich Agreement, which allowed Adolf Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia.

Mr Goff recalled how Sir Winston Churchill had criticised the agreement, then said of the US leader: “President Trump has restored the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office. But do you think he really understands history?”

His comments were “deeply disappointing” and made his position “untenable”, New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters said.

His comments came after Trump paused military aid to Kyiv following a heated exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office last week.

He contrasted Trump with Churchill who, while estranged from the British government, spoke against the Munich Agreement as he saw it as a surrender to Nazi Germany’s threats.

Mr Goff quoted how Churchill had rebuked then UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain: “You had the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, yet you will have war.”

Peters said Mr Goff’s views did not represent those of the New Zealand government.

“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,” local media reported Peters saying.

“It’s not the way you behave as the front face of a country, diplomatically,” he said, adding that he would have taken the same course of action no matter which country was being spoken about.

Mr Goff is a veteran politician who had been high commissioner since January 2023. Before that, he served for two terms as mayor of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, and was leader of the Labour Party from 2008 to 2011. He had also held several ministerial portfolios, including justice, foreign affairs and defence.

Peters, who is also deputy prime minister, told reporters that he had made the decision to sack Phil Goff without first consulting Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.

When it was pointed out that Luxon was the leader of New Zealand, Peters responded: “I know he’s the prime minister, I made him the prime minister.”

The 79-year-old, who has previously worked with Mr Goff in government, leads the New Zealand First political party – which joined Luxon’s National Party and the Act Party in 2023 to form the current ruling centre-right coalition government.

Luxon, for his part, said Peters’ decision to fire Mr Goff without first consulting him was “entirely appropriate”.

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark was among those who criticised Mr Goff’s sacking, saying it was backed by a “very thin excuse”.

“I have been at Munich Security Conference recently where many draw parallels between Munich 1938 and US actions now,” she wrote in a post on X.

Under the 1938 Munich Agreement, Hitler took control of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland. The deal failed to stop Nazi Germany from advancing deeper into Europe and World War Two began when he invaded Poland in 1939.