Theresa May has issued a stinging criticism of Boris Johnson, accusing him of abandoning Britain’s position of ‘global moral leadership’.
The former PM suggested her successor has failed to honour British values by threatening to break international law in Brexit trade talks and slashing the foreign aid budget.
She said the two actions were not ones that ‘raised our credibility in the eyes of the world’.
The remarks came in an article for the Daily Mail to mark Joe Biden’s inauguration.
Mrs May said the election of a ‘decent’ US president offers a ‘golden opportunity’ for Britain to play a key role in making the world safer.
But she suggested that Mr Johnson will be unable to grasp it unless there is an end to macho diplomacy where a few self-styled strongmen ‘face off against each other’.
She wrote: ‘We have been sliding towards absolutism in international affairs: if you are not 100 per cent for me, you must be 100 per cent against me. Compromise is seen as a dirty word.
‘We must reject a scene in which a few strongmen face off against each other and instead bring people together in a common cause.’
Mrs May said the UK was well placed to shape a ‘more co-operative world’, adding: ‘But to lead we must live up to our values.’
She suggested this is something Mr Johnson had not done on a number of occasions.
She wrote: ‘Threatening to break international law by going back on a (European Union) treaty we had just signed and abandoning our position of global moral leadership as the only major economy to meet both the 2 per cent defence spending target and the 0.7 per cent international aid target were not actions which raised our credibility in the eyes of the world.
‘Other countries listen to what we say not simply because of who we are, but because of what we do. The world does not owe us a prominent place on its stage. Whatever the rhetoric we deploy, it is our actions which count.
‘So, we should do nothing which signals a retreat from our global commitments.’
Mrs May has had a series of clashes in the Commons with Mr Johnson since he ousted her 18 months ago.
Last month she told the House of Commons her 2019 Brexit deal was better than his.
The proposed deal, which would have seen the UK remain temporarily in the EU’s customs union, was rejected by hardline Tory Brexiteers and triggered the resignation of Mr Johnson from her cabinet, as well as David Davis
After a succession of Commons defeats over her Brexit deal from Tory rebels including Boris Johnson, as well as opposition parties, Mrs May tearfully resigned in July 2019.
Her intervention comes as Mr Biden prepares to take office on Wednesday following a turbulent end to the Trump presidency that saw his supporters storm the US Capitol building.
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