Boris Johnson facing calls to quit over gaffe which left jailed Brit Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe 'in tears' and facing years more in cells

Two former Foreign Secretaries criticised Mr Johnson over his most serious blunder yet

Boris Johnson faced calls to resign today as it emerged that jailed mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe wept in despair after his most serious blunder yet as Foreign Secretary.

Two ex-foreign secretaries criticised Mr Johnson, with one saying he needed to understand that “careless talk costs lives” in high-level diplomacy.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, below, is serving a five-year prison sentence in Iran, over allegations of involvement in “propaganda against the regime”. She has worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation and the BBC, but insists the visit last year was for her daughter to meet her grandparents in Tehran.

Today a Cabinet colleague, Liam Fox, admitted Mr Johnson had made a “slip of the tongue” when he told the Foreign Affairs Committee that the innocent holidaymaker had been training journalists in Iran.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, right, was left crying in despair after Boris Johnson's most serious blunder yet as Foreign Secretary

The mistake could cost her an extra five years behind bars.

In key developments:

  • Mr Johnson spoke by phone to Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif today and insisted that Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been on holiday. He said “his remarks could form no justifiable basis for further action” against her.

  • However, the Foreign Office said he “accepts his remarks to the Foreign Affairs Committee could have been clearer”. Mr Johnson was due to address the Commons. 

  • Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a former Tory foreign secretary, rebuked Mr Johnson, saying he needed “to concentrate more” and “get the detail right”.

  • Jack Straw, an ex-Labour foreign secretary, said: “I am concerned about the intense risks to the security of UK citizens by Boris’s flippant busking.”

  • Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said Mr Johnson should quit if his actions turn out to have damaged Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s prospects of freedom.

  • The chief executive of the Thomson Reuters Foundation said Mr Johnson had failed to meet her or the family despite their pleading. Monique Villa said: “You could think the Foreign Minister would meet with us.”

Dr Fox, the International Trade Secretary, claimed: “I don’t believe that it is a serious gaffe.

"I think people in the Iranian regime, which is a very brutal regime, are using this as an excuse to hold a UK citizen in the most tenuous of circumstances.”

Speaking to the Standard, London accountant Richard Ratcliffe told how his wife wept down the phone when she was hauled back before a court.

“She was just saying, ‘Why do I have to suffer? Why does my baby have to suffer?’” he said. “On Saturday she was gutted and furious, and cried most of the call.”

Later, Mr Ratcliffe told his wife that Mr Johnson’s comments could have been behind the Iranian authorities taking her back to court for new charges.

Mr Ratcliffe said: “She was obviously distraught about being taken back to court and bewildered about what caused that.

“She isn’t sitting there blaming Boris, she knows it’s the Iranians doing this, and what she is focused on now is him visiting her as soon as possible.”

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in April 2016 and separated from her toddler Gabriella during a family holiday
PA

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, from Hampstead, was arrested in April 2016 and separated from her toddler Gabriella, who remains trapped in Iran.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe insisted at her original trial that she was not working at the time. But Mr Johnson told the committee on November 1: “When I look at what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was doing, she was simply teaching people journalism, as I understand it.

“[Neither] Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe nor her family has been informed about what crime she has actually committed. And that I find extraordinary, incredible.”

After Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was dragged into court on Saturday, the Iranian judiciary’s High Council for Human Rights declared that the Foreign Secretary had revealed the truth. It said: “His [Johnson’s] statement shows that Nazanin had visited the country for anything but a holiday.

“For months it was claimed that Nazanin is a British-Iranian charity worker who went to see her family when she was arrested ... Mr Johnson’s statement has shed new light on the realities about Nazanin.”

Diplomatic insiders pointed out that hardliners in the regime, rather than the more emollient Iranian ministry for foreign affairs, are holding Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Tulip Siddiq, MP for Hampstead & Kilburn, said: “Boris has been given a long period now in which to retract his wrong statement. Now he has to resign. Nazanin has been on hunger strike, she is suicidal. You cannot bumble your way through a case like this.”

Sir Malcolm told the BBC’s Today show: “You have to get the detail right or could cause serious problems for your own government.” Mr Straw said Mr Johnson was causing harm. “If you are Foreign Secretary, rule number one is ‘Careless talk costs lives’.”

Mr Johnson has been involved in a series of gaffes as Foreign Secretary. Last month he joked that firms would invest in Libya once its “dead bodies” had been cleared away.

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