Britain's trade minister said on Monday he would apologize to US President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka for a leak of confidential memos in which the UK ambassador describes the US administration as "dysfunctional" and "inept."
The memos from Kim Darroch, the UK's ambassador to Washington, were leaked to a Sunday newspaper, annoying Trump and triggering demands on the British side to find out who had disclosed them.
Trade Minister Liam Fox, who is on a visit to Washington, told BBC radio he would apologize to Ivanka, who he was due to meet during his trip.
"I will be apologizing for the fact that either our civil service or elements of our political class have not lived up to the expectations that either we have or the US has about their behavior, which in this particular case has lapsed in a most extraordinary and unacceptable way," he said.
"Malicious leaks of this nature are unprofessional, unethical and unpatriotic and can actually lead to a damage to that relationship which can therefore affect our wider security interest."
The revelations come at a time when Britain is hoping to strike a major trade deal with its closest ally after it leaves the EU, an exit currently scheduled for October 31.
Trump told reporters, of Darroch: "We are not big fans of that man and he has not served the UK well, so I can understand and I can say things about him but I won't bother."
In memos to his government dating from 2017 to the present, Darroch said reports of in-fighting in the White House were "mostly true" and last month described confusion within the administration over Trump's decision to call off a military strike on Iran.
"We don't really believe this Administration is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction driven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept," Darroch wrote in one memo, according to the Mail on Sunday.
Fox echoed a statement from Britain's Foreign Office that the views Darroch had expressed were not those of the British government itself.
