Boris Johnson is facing a growing backlash inside Libya to his suggestion that the city of Sirte might become a new Dubai once “the dead bodies” are removed, with the head of the country’s UN-backed government condemning the remarks.

Fayez al-Serraj, who has been strongly supported by the British government over the past two years, met the British ambassador to Libya, Peter Millett, to seek an explanation and said some of the foreign secretary’s comments were unacceptable.

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Millett told Serraj that Johnson was referring to deaths of foreigners belonging to terrorist organisations. Hundreds of Libyans died in the battle to liberate Sirte and are widely regarded as martyrs.

In the UK, the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, a former Labour cabinet minister, suggested the remarks might even damage UK cooperation with Libya over the potential trial of the brother of the Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi.

Burnham has called for the trial of Hashem Abedi, 20, to be held in the UK under British law, but described Johnson’s comments as “worse than embarrassing”.

“I wouldn’t want to go into too much detail on this but yes, it is sensitive,” he said. “Yes, we are looking for cooperation from Libya and I do not think the person with responsibility for UK diplomacy can just go and shoot from the hip everywhere he goes.”

Hashem Abedi is alleged to have played a key role in the Manchester Arena attack carried out by his brother in May.

There is no suggestion yet that the anger within Libya over Johnson’s remarks will damage anything as serious as security cooperation, but there is a political backlash that might reduce UK influence just as talks over the political future in Libya reach a critical stage. There is a competition between European governments over the future political makeup of a revamped Libyan government, especially the likely role of Gen Khalifa Haftar, the leader of the so-called Libyan National Army.

In a further sign of the anger, the Tobruk-based Libyan parliament’s foreign affairs and international cooperation committee condemned the remarks, meaning that both sides in the dispute in Libya have expressed their displeasure. The committee called for an explanation and apology from Theresa May.

The House of Representatives committee, in a statement posted on its website, said it deplored Johnson’s “irresponsible” remarks and called on the prime minister to clarify and apologise. It said his plans to turn Sirte into something resembling Dubai was a violation of national sovereignty.

Individual politicians in Libya have earlier condemned Johnson’s remarks, which were made at a fringe meeting at the Conservative party conference, but the statements by the committee and Serraj put further pressure on the foreign secretary to make some form of public apology.

The UK Foreign Office provided £3m in the summer to help with the clearing of bombs from Sirte, a Libyan coastal town that was held by Islamic State for nearly six months last year. Some improvised explosive devices were left on dead bodies in Sirte, but the juxtaposition of British businessmen planning to turn Sirte into a luxury resort and the remark about dead bodies jarred with many Tory MPs.

Johnson defended his comments on Twitter, accusing people “with no knowledge or understanding of Libya” of wanting to “play politics with the appallingly dangerous reality in Sirte”.

“The reality there is that the clearing of corpses of Daesh [Isis] fighters has been made much more difficult by IEDs and booby traps.

“That’s why Britain is playing a key role in reconstruction and why I have visited Libya twice this year in support,” he said in a series of tweets immediately after he made the remarks.

In one of the more scholarly British condemnations of Johnson, the former British ambassador to Libya Sir Oliver Miles tweeted: “Boris has forgotten his Greek. Antigone’s respect for the dead in defiance of King Kreon is a classic statement of morality against tyranny.”



