The United Kingdom will remain a world power and a close ally of the United States in the aftermath of the vote to leave the European Union, the U.K. ambassador reassured Americans Sunday.
“We’re not going to disappear from the world stage,” Kim Darroch said on ABC’s “This Week.” “We will still be important players and America’s closest allies.”
Britain is still the world’s fifth-largest economy and the fourth-largest military power, Darroch noted, despite the fears raised over the weekend about the consequences of Brexit.
“The task for us now is to pull together and work out the new relationship with Europe,” Darroch said of the path forward for Britain. Darroch became ambassador in January, under prime minister David Cameron. Cameron favored the U.K. remaining in the EU and has offered his resignation as a result of the vote.
“There’s going to be a period of uncertainty,” Darroch acknowledged, “but we are a strong country, a stable country, we will work it out in our usual pragmatic way.”
Interviewed on the same show Sunday morning, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed that the “special relationship” between the two English-speaking countries would not change.
“That’s a pretty solid relationship,” McConnell remarked. “The only other bilateral relationship in the world that’s anywhere near this close would be our relationship with Israel.”
