Britain's International Trade Secretary Liam Fox | Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP via Getty Images) Diplomatic leak was ‘unpatriotic’: UK trade secretary The international trade secretary said the leak may have been a breach of the Official Secrets Act.

U.K. Trade Secretary Liam Fox said he was "appalled" by the "unpatriotic" leak of confidential diplomatic cables written by the country's ambassador in Washington at the weekend.

He told the BBC's Today program that the views expressed by Ambassador Kim Darroch did not reflect the views of the government, but he said the diplomat should be able to express them candidly without fear that they would be made public.

“We don’t really believe this Administration is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept,” Darroch wrote, according to the Mail on Sunday.

"Malicious leaks of this nature are unprofessional, they’re unethical and they’re unpatriotic because they can actually lead to a damage to that relationship which can therefore affect our wider security interest," said Fox. "I think it is unconscionable that any professional person either in politics or the civil service could behave in this way."

Fox added that it was important the leaker was found. "This is such a potentially damaging event that I hope the full force of either internal discipline or even the law will come down on whoever actually carried out this particular act," he said. Depending on the classification of the documents, he said, the leaker might have broken the Official Secrets Act.

But he denied it would be necessary to recall Darroch. "I think that who we have as our diplomats is of course a matter for us."

“The ambassador has not served the U.K. well, I can tell you that,” U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters in New Jersey on Sunday.