Boris Johnson's Saudi 'proxy wars' comment 'not UK's view'

Downing Street has said Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's comments on Saudi Arabia do not represent "the government's position".

Footage has emerged from an event last week at which Mr Johnson said UK ally Saudi Arabia was engaging in "proxy wars" in the Middle East.

The PM's spokeswoman said these were the foreign secretary's personal views.

But former minister Crispin Blunt said No 10 had been "a little too sensitive in responding to his remarks".

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The chairman of the foreign affairs select committee told the BBC: "We have an intellectually brilliant foreign secretary who is thinking about the issues and engaging fully. Boris is making the personal transition to foreign secretary from commentator and the watching media jump on every mis-speak."

He added: "He and the prime minister have complementary skills sets and the UK needs both."

Mr Johnson's comments were made at a conference in Rome last week but only emerged after the The Guardian newspaper published footage of the event.

In it the foreign secretary said: "There are politicians who are twisting and abusing religion and different strains of the same religion in order to further their own political objectives.

"That's one of the biggest political problems in the whole region. And the tragedy for me - and that's why you have these proxy wars being fought the whole time in that area - is that there is not strong enough leadership in the countries themselves."

Mr Johnson told the Med 2 conference: "There are not enough big characters, big people, men or women, who are willing to reach out beyond their Sunni or Shia or whatever group to the other side and bring people together and to develop a national story again.

"That is what's lacking. And that's the tragedy," he said, adding that "visionary leadership" was needed in the region.

He went on: "That's why you've got the Saudis, Iran, everybody, moving in and puppeteering and playing proxy wars."

By BBC diplomatic correspondent James Landale

The prime minister has just come back from the Gulf where she has been promoting Britain's engagement with a part of the world whose trade will be hugely important after Brexit.

She has dined with the Saudi king, praised the kingdom for its reforms and given thanks for the vital intelligence the Saudi security services have provided Britain over the years.

And then Theresa May returned to hear her foreign secretary had dismissed the Saudis as "puppeteers" playing at "proxy wars".

It is little wonder that her official spokeswoman came down on Mr Johnson like a tonne of black-edged Downing Street bricks, saying that the foreign secretary was not expressing the government's position and he will have the opportunity to set out the correct government position when he visits Saudi Arabia at the weekend.

Read more from James

BBC diplomatic correspondent James Landale described Downing Street's response as a "pretty robust slapdown" and while Mr Johnson's comments were "clearly awkward" for the government.

He said many people would agree with the analysis that many of the Middle East conflicts were proxy wars fought between Sunni and Shia factions, often in the form of Iran and Saudi Arabia being on opposing sides, such as in Syria and Yemen - but it was not the official government position.

Downing Street's comment came as Prime Minister Theresa May returned from a visit to the Gulf where she had dinner with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.

Her spokeswoman said that Mrs May wanted to strengthen the relationship with Saudi Arabia, saying, "we are supporting the Saudi-led coalition in support of the legitimate government in Yemen against Houthi rebels".

She said: "Those are the prime minister's views - the foreign secretary's views are not the government's position on, for example, Saudi Arabia and its role in the region."

Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry accused the government of "shabby hypocrisy".

"The government cannot complain about Saudi Arabia's military actions one minute, then continue selling it the arms to prosecute those actions the next," she said.

Tom Brake, the Lib Dems' foreign affairs spokesman, said: "This will be a huge embarrassment to May as she returns from her grubby tour of the Gulf, where she did her best to ignore human rights and desperately push trade at all costs."