Phil Goff, New Zealand’s ambassador to the UK, has been dismissed after he criticised US President Donald Trump’s “grasp” of World War II history.
The office of New Zealand’s foreign minister Winston Peters declared on Thursday that Goff’s position was “untenable” following the high commissioner’s comments at a London panel discussion.
The ministry of foreign affairs of New Zealand confirmed discussions about Goff’s return and declined further statements.
At a Chatham House event on Wednesday, Goff drew parallels between Trump’s Ukraine war stance and the 1938 Munich Agreement, which permitted Nazi Germany’s annexation of Czechoslovak territories.
“I was re-reading Churchill’s speech to the House of Commons in 1938 after the Munich Agreement, and he turned to Chamberlain, he said, ‘You had the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, yet you will have war,'” Goff said during a Q&A session, referring to former UK Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain.

“President Trump has restored the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office. But do you think he really understands history?”
In an indirect response, Finland’s foreign minister Elina Valtonen, who attended the event, noted that Churchill’s were “timeless remarks.”
Before his 2023 UK diplomatic appointment, Goff held various ministerial roles, including foreign affairs, and served two terms as the mayor of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city.
New Zealand’s foreign minister, ex-PM react
On his part, New Zealand foreign minister Peters described Goff’s dismissal as necessary but “seriously disappointing.”
“We cannot have people making comments which impinge upon our very future – no matter what the country is, whether it’s Niue, Samoa, Tonga, Japan or, dare I say it, the United States,” Peters said.
“When you are in that position – you represent the government and the policies of the day. You’re not able to free-think. You are the face of New Zealand,” he added.
Meanwhile, former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark described the high commissioner’s dismissal as a “very thin excuse”, noting similar comparisons were common at the recent Munich Security Conference, attended by US vice president JD Vance, among others.