World reacts to new UK Foreign Secretary

“There is a massive difference between leaving the European Union and our relations with Europe which, if anything, are going to be intensified”.

Turkey will draw a line under disparaging comments by Britain’s new foreign secretary Boris Johnson about President Tayyip Erdogan and his nation, a senior official said on Thursday, but warned relations would be damaged if he repeated such insults.

He will travel widely, attending diplomatic meetings on matters from worldwide security to the outcome of the United States elections.

Johnson announced that his new appointment made him “very humbled”.

And he will take charge of matters relating to the Commonwealth countries and British Overseas Territories such as Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands.

Mr. Johnson originally made his name as an EU-bashing journalist in Brussels, then entered politics in the Conservative Party while also raising his profile through a series of appearances on a hit comedy TV show.

He has previously suggested USA president Barack Obama was “part-Kenyan” in a column for The Sun newspaper, called presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton a “sadistic nurse in a mental hospital”.

Johnson also once joked that he would invite presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump to tour London “except I wouldn’t want to expose any Londoners to any unnecessary risk of meeting Donald Trump”. Is this a bad dream?

Viewed by the new Prime Minister as a safe pair of hands, his appointment is created to reassure the markets at a turbulent time.

Amber Rudd, energy secretary under former PM David Cameron, was named home secretary – the position held by May for the past six years.

But her decision to put Johnson on the world stage dealing with foreign leaders is raising questions, largely because of Johnson’s propensity for saying exactly wrong thing at the wrong time, sometimes in the most provocative way.

British Prime Minister Theresa May yesterday filled out her Cabinet posts, assembling a government that sweeps away many of her predecessor’s supporters and places strongly anti-EU figures in key worldwide roles.

Philip Hammond, who had been foreign secretary, is now chancellor. They will be borrowing some of our staff, as is only proper.

The appointment to Cabinet also shocked comedian Ricky Gervais, who tweeted to his 11.3m followers: “I’m beginning to think 2016 is a spoof”. “I’m very excited to play a part of that”, The Telegraph quoted him as saying. This was only one of a long list of distortions and lies told to encourage Britons to vote to leave the European Union, but it is one which makes the new portfolio a matter of enormous concern. The 54-year-old is an ex-defence and foreign office minister.