Lord Cameron has reacted after a US congresswoman’s outburst, in which she said the foreign secretary should “kiss my ass”.
He laughed off the comments by prominent right-wing Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, which came following his call for US legislators to pass a bill committing more funding for Ukraine.
Lord Cameron addressed the comments – made to Sky News – during a speech at the Munich Security Conference on Friday.
“We met,” he told the audience in Germany.
“I went to the Republican study group lunch, talking about exactly this issue.”
“We didn’t get anatomical at that stage, it was very early in our relationship,” he joked.
Ms Taylor Greene made the comments in response to a piece on the US website, The Hill, in which Lord Cameron urged US politicians to support a bill committing more funding for Ukraine.
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In the piece, the former prime minister wrote that the $61bn (£49bn) funding package for Ukraine “matters greatly to UK and European security”.
“This is personal for me. My grandfather stormed the beaches of Normandy under covering fire from US warships,” he wrote.
“And as prime minister, I ordered the UK military to join the US in driving the Islamic State death cult out of Syria and Iraq.”
Asked by Sky News about the piece, Ms Taylor Greene said Lord Cameron “needs to worry about his own country and frankly he can kiss my ass.”
Despite the rebuke, Lord Cameron said he would continue to make the plea for the multibillion-dollar foreign aid package to make its way through Congress.
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The bill has passed through the Senate but faces a deeply uncertain future in the House of Representatives, where hardline Republicans aligned with presidential front-runner Donald Trump oppose the legislation.
Lord Cameron said: “I am very understanding of other countries’ politics and when I say to American Congressmen and women, ‘please vote for this bill, please release this money for Ukraine’, I do it hugely respecting the pressures they are under politically.
“It’s not lecturing, it’s not hectoring, it’s because not only do I love my own country, I love the United States.
“I think this is so important for America, not just for Europeans.
“I said it as someone who loves America, who wants America to be strong and powerful and the essential nation as our partner in the world, and if I didn’t quite get that across to Marjorie Taylor Greene I’m not going to give up because I think it’s really important.”
At an earlier event in Poland, Lord Cameron appeared to try to calm any tensions, telling reporters he was “someone who is not wanting in any way to lecture American friends or tell American friends what to do”.
