NZ Foreign Minister Winston Peters says High Commissioner Phil Goff's comments were "deeply disappointing". (AP: Mark Tantrum)
In short:
New Zealand's most senior diplomat in London made remarks critical of US President Donald Trump at an event this week.
High Commissioner Phil Goff, a former Labour foreign minister, has been fired by NZ's right-leaning government.
What's next?
New Zealand's foreign ministry is working with Mr Goff on the transition to a new high commissioner.
New Zealand's foreign minister has sacked the country's envoy to the United Kingdom after he made comments seen as critical of US President Donald Trump.
High Commissioner Phil Goff made the comments at a forum in London on Tuesday that appeared to question Mr Trump's grasp of history, contrasting the president's attempts to thaw relations with Russia with the actions of Britain's wartime leader Winston Churchill, who fought against Nazi Germany.
Mr Goff asked a question from the audience of the guest speaker, Finland's Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, in which he said he had been re-reading a famous speech by Mr Churchill from 1938.
Phil Goff was previously New Zealand's foreign minister under the centre-left Labour Party. (Reuters: Belinda Jiao/File)
Mr Churchill's speech, made when he was an MP in the government of prime minister Neville Chamberlain, rebuked Britain's signing of the Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler, allowing Germany to annex part of Czechoslovakia.Â
Mr Goff quoted Churchill as saying to Chamberlain: "You had the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, yet you will have war."
He then asked Ms Valtonen: "President Trump has restored the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office. But do you think he really understands history?"
Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen was a guest speaker at the event. (Reuters: Lisa Leutner)
As the audience chuckled at the New Zealand envoy's question, Ms Valtonen said she would "limit myself" to saying that Churchill "has made very timeless remarks", according to video of the event published by New Zealand news outlets.
Ms Valtonen's speech  was billed as covering Finland's approach to European security at an event entitled 'Keeping the peace on NATO's longest border with Russia'.
'Very thin excuse' for firing, says former PM
NZ Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in a statement that Mr Goff's comments were "deeply disappointing".
"They do not represent the views of the NZ government and make his position as high commissioner to London untenable," he said.
New Zealand's top bureaucrat in the NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Bede Corry, was working with Mr Goff on a transition to a new ambassador, Mr Peters added.
Mr Goff, a former foreign minister and MP in the centre-left Labour Party, was appointed high commissioner to the UK in 2023.
Mr Peters leads the populist NZ First party in the current right-leaning coalition governing New Zealand.
Former NZ prime minister Helen Clark — who was Mr Goff's boss during his time as a politician — denounced his sacking in a post on X, where she wrote the episode was "a very thin excuse" for removing a "highly respected" former foreign minister from his diplomatic role.
AP/Reuters