Boris Johnson takes time with UK’s reply on Iran

Bloomberg

After Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Iran had misled the world over its atomic programme, he might have expected a swift reaction from UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. Britain is, after all, one of the six signatories to Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
But it was not until 19 hours after Netanyahu’s presentation that Johnson — among the main voices trying to persuade President Donald Trump not to pull out of the agreement — finally took to Twitter to state Britain’s view. “Iran deal based not on trust but verification,” Johnson said on Trump’s communication channel of choice. “Israeli PM’s speech on Iran’s past nuclear weapons research shows why we need Iran nuclear deal.”
Johnson’s ministry was apparently similarly unperturbed evening, taking two hours and 40 minutes from the end of the Israeli prime minister’s presentation to respond to a request for comment.
Even then, the duty press officer replied that a statement had been sent out by the British Embassy in Washington and that he would “see if I can get hold of the response.”
To critics, that was proof of the toll on the state bureaucracy by Britain’s austerity drive or that the UK is shrinking from the world stage as a result of Brexit. The Foreign Office budget was trimmed by 22 percent between 2010 and 2015, and the cost of providing a supporting role to the Department for Exiting the European Union has added to the pressure.