Boris Johnson may be more suited to another cabinet position after his criticism of Saudi Arabia, which was “completely at variance” with the government’s position, the former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind has said.

Rifkind said Johnson was in a unique position to seek to change government policy towards Saudi Arabia as foreign secretary, but should not have gone off-message in such a way.

“What he is not entitled to do is make public statements at a major event in Rome that are completely at variance with the government’s line. He must have known that, at least he ought to have known that, and he should not have done it,” Rifkind told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

He suggested that Johnson’s approach could see him demoted and said foreign secretaries could not be celebrities while carrying out the role.

“He might end up being more comfortable in another senior cabinet position,” Rifkind said.

The foreign secretary’s claim that Saudi Arabia was “puppeteering and playing proxy wars” in the Middle East, reported by the Guardian, prompted a strong rebuke from No 10 on Thursday.

May put the pro-Brexit Johnson in the key role to help secure the support of leavers for whatever deal emerges from the article 50 negotiations, but relations between the pair appear to have become increasingly strained.

His allies have signalled that he is frustrated with the prime minister’s jokes at his expense and slapdowns of several comments by Downing Street.

Some Tory MPs are even convinced that there is an orchestrated campaign to undermine him as foreign secretary by diehard former remain supporters and EU politicians.

May’s spokeswoman said on Friday the prime minister remained supportive of Johnson. “The prime minister has made clear she has full confidence in the foreign secretary, and as she said earlier this week, he’s doing important work on a whole range of difficult issues.”

The foreign secretary faces a difficult trip to the Gulf as he visits Bahrain on Friday, followed by Saudi Arabia.



Johnson was due to speak at a conference in Bahrain on Friday evening. Asked if Downing Street had cleared the speech, May’s spokeswoman said there “would have been discussions in the usual way”, without elaborating.

Asked if Johnson should retract his comment about Saudi Arabia, she said: “He will have the opportunity there, in his discussions with senior Saudi representatives, to talk about the government’s policy and the government’s approach.”

But a supporter of Johnson said he would not be apologising, because the comments were an accurate reflection of what he has been saying in private in Saudi Arabia.

While the government has a longstanding position of not criticising Saudi Arabia as a close ally, there are others in the Conservative party who support the foreign secretary’s stance.

The former international development secretary Andrew Mitchell said: “The reality is that Britain has a complicated relationship with Saudi Arabia and our economic and political interests do not always coincide.

“In many ways, Saudi is an important ally, but we have a duty as their candid friend to warn them about areas of difficulty.”

Johnson was also defended by Sarah Wollaston, the MP for Totnes, who criticised Saudi Arabia’s record on human rights.

#Boris was speaking the truth on proxy wars and it's time for all parties in the region to end the sectarian bloodbath — Sarah Wollaston MP (@sarahwollaston) December 8, 2016

Crispin Blunt, who chairs the foreign affairs committee, suggested Downing Street could have handled it better. “No 10 would have been wise not to react in quite such a sharp manner,” he said.

The prime minister has twice joked publicly at Johnson’s expense, including at an awards ceremony where she compared him to a dog Michael Heseltine had choked, saying: “Boris, the dog was put down … when its master decided it wasn’t needed any more.” The chancellor, Philip Hammond, included a joke about Johnson’s leadership ambitions in his autumn statement speech.

James Cleverly, MP for Braintree, who supported Johnson’s aborted leadership bid before backing May, said joking about him risked undermining the foreign secretary.

“After the incident with the ambassadors [who claimed Johnson still supported free movement in the EU] where it became obvious reports about Boris were fabricated by someone, a number of people who have been doing a bit of gentle ribbing are asking themselves whether it’s in our national interest to continue doing that ,” said Cleverly.

Johnson is due to deliver a speech at a conference called the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain on Friday. Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, said: “We welcome Boris Johnson’s honest criticism of Saudi Arabia and ask him to be critical in his keynote speech at the Manama Dialogue tomorrow.

“Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have shown a complete disregard to human rights, with more death sentences and more imprisoned activists and torture than at any other time since the Arab spring. Britain should use its position on the world stage to champion human rights, not sacrifice them for commerce with corrupt countries.”

Johnson’s remarks in Italy broke a longstanding UK diplomatic convention not to criticise Saudi Arabia in public. The UK has always said the Saudi-led coalition bombing campaign in Yemen, aided by UK arms and British military advice, is a legitimate attempt to defend Saudi Arabia’s borders.