Boris Johnson, the UK’s gaffe-prone Foreign Secretary, takes a famously unique approach to diplomacy.
He has previously insulted the populations and leaders of nations from the US to China and Papua New Guinea; on Monday, New Zealand became the latest country to fall victim to a Johnson blunder.
On a visit there Johnson joked that the hongi, a greeting traditionally used in Maori communities which sees people press their foreheads and noses together, could be mistaken for a headbutt.
“I think it’s a beautiful form of introduction, though it might be misinterpreted in a pub in Glasgow, if you were to try it,” he said, according to the Press Association.
‘Glasgow kiss’
A “Glasgow kiss” is a term sometimes used in Britain to describe a headbutt, and can be seen as a humorous or disparaging dig at the Scottish city.
Johnson is in New Zealand to strengthen the UK’s ties with the country, amid preparations for Brexit. Formal negotiations regarding the UK’s departure from the European Union began on June 19.
Johnson said it was his first time in New Zealand, that the country had much in common with the UK and that he “was learning” about the differences between the two nations.
The minister’s official Twitter account posted a photograph of Johnson being welcomed with a hongi by a Maori leader.
The UK’s top diplomat has previously penned a controversial limerick about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and called former US President Barack Obama a “part Kenyan” with an “ancestral dislike of the British Empire”.
