Iranian top diplomat says Tehran has no restrictions in the expansion of relations with Islamabad as Iran attaches special importance to the development of relations with this neighbor.

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She also claims some Brexiters are consumed with hatred for Germany and gripped by a myth that they liberated Europe on their own, describing Brexit as a triumph of emotion over reason, won by a campaign full of lies in which negative attitudes to migration were exploited by figures such as Johnson and Michael Gove.

Bermann, who served as the French ambassador to the UK from 2014 to 2017 and has been one of the most senior diplomats in the French diplomatic service, including as ambassador to China and to Russia, assesses the British handling of the Covid pandemic as among the worst in the world alongside that of Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. She predicts Johnson will seek to use Covid to mask the true economic cost of Brexit on the UK economy.

Johnson, she says, comes from an Eton and Oxford University class that believes they are entitled to use language to provoke. Describing him as intelligent and charming, she says he uses “lies to embellish reality, as a game and as instrument of power. The ends justify the means. He has no rules.”

Asked at a Royal United Services Institute thinktank event about her description of him as an unrepentant liar, she said: “He would not object to being called that. He knows he is a liar. He has always played with that. He was fired from his first post for that reason.”

In her book, Goodbye Britannia, she seeks to define the psyche that led to Brexit. She describes “the partisans of Brexit as reciting a history in which the UK is never defeated, never invaded”. She suggests a country that considers it singlehandedly won the second world war, liberating the continent and deserving of gratitude.

Referencing the more than 22 million Russians who died in the war, she says “this does not disturb the discourse of the Brexiters who peddle the myth that the UK liberated Europe alone and needs no one”.

She adds that France does have a debt of gratitude to the British, but “it is right to remember that they were not alone and you cannot live with a history that stopped in June 1944”.

“The corollary of an England saving Europe,” she adds, “is a detestation of Germany and contempt for cowardice – the term is often used for those who allowed themselves to be occupied, not to mention collaborated.”

The British account of the second world war, relayed in films such as Dunkirk, she says, led to loss of confidence in the EU as an instrument of peace.

She admits she did not believe the Brexit referendum would be lost by David Cameron’s government, pointing out that both sides of the debate had told her the same. In retrospect, she viewed the defeat as the first crisis of electoral democracy, and the harbinger of the populism that has been followed through in the US and Europe.

“David Cameron was always telling other heads of government that he would win and he rejected any help from EU countries,” she told Rusi. She said that if Cameron had warned the EU that he was going to lose, Europe would have come up with a new offer on migration. British ministers told her that they might win with as much as 60% of the vote.

In the book, she asks: “How this country whose influence had been decisive in Brussels, which insolently rolled out the red carpet for French entrepreneurs and which Xi Jinping had elected in October 2015 as the gateway to Europe, at the dawn of a golden period, how has it undertaken to scuttle itself?”

She predicts: “Boris Johnson’s temptation will be to hide the bill for Brexit under the Covid carpet, valued at more than £200bn for 2020, almost as much as the United Kingdom’s total contribution to the European Union since its accession in 1973, which was £215bn.”

She says it is inevitable that the UK will struggle now to find influence outside the EU, and has a Scottish independence referendum hanging over its head.

She says she believes the EU would feel obliged to open talks with Scotland in the event of a referendum vote to leave the UK, but that is not the official EU position, partly due to pressure from Spain. Madrid fears the knock-on impact among Catalan separatists if an independent Scotland was allowed to join the EU.

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Russia’s Foreign Ministry was bewildered over the UK government’s decision announced on December 10 on imposing national sanctions against three Russian citizens and a unit of the National Guard for allegedly abusing human rights in the Chechen Republic, the diplomat said.

“Considering the principle of reciprocity, we reserve the right to take adequate tit-for-tat measures,” the Russian diplomat said.

The new anti-Russian sanctions imposed by London demonstrate that the UK authorities are unready to give up the confrontational course towards Russia, the spokeswoman said.

“We view this unfounded decision as vivid demonstration that the British authorities are unready to give up their confrontational course towards Russia. No doubt, this politically engaged demarche will negatively affect the Russian-British inter-state relations,” the diplomat stressed.

On December 10, the UK authorities imposed personal sanctions on three Russian politicians for alleged tortures and human rights abuses against representatives of the non-traditional sexual orientation in the Chechen Republic.

The restrictions that envisage a ban on an entry into the UK and a freeze of bank accounts were slapped against Chechen Parliament Speaker Magomed Daudov, Ex-Police Chief of the Chechen town of Argun, Ayub Katayev, and Chechen Deputy Interior Minister Alti Alaudinov. The sanctions were also imposed against the Chechen special rapid response unit Terek.

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Boasting panoramic views, the flat occupies the whole 38th-floor, according to the Guardian, which first reported the story.

The Foreign Office said it had “secured the best possible deal”.

The apartment “will help promote the UK in the commercial capital of our largest export market for years to come”, it said.

The consul general, who will live in the penthouse with his immediate family, is also the UK’s trade commissioner for North America.

A floor plan of the 5,893 sq ft apartment shows a library, six bathrooms and a powder room.

Designed by British architect Norman Foster, the 44-storey 50 United Nations Plaza is close to the UN headquarters in Manhattan and is described as the “ultimate global address”.

On the website of architects Foster and Partners, the high-rise is described as a “luxury residential tower occupying a prestigious location”.

Every apartment features floor to ceiling bay windows and generous space for entertaining, the firm says.

“Adding a touch of elegance to every detail, the powder room walls are fitted with glazed silk panels in a choice of either bold primary or natural colours,” the website adds.

A spa in the basement has a large exercise pool for residents, according to the website.

The penthouse was bought by “Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs” on 15 March, according to New York City records.

“At least someone is going to do OK out of Brexit,” Labour MP Gareth Thomas said on Twitter in response to the purchase.

And Stewart Maxwell, a special adviser to Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon on business and the economy, tweeted: “UK Tory government make clear that austerity isn’t for everybody”.

The Foreign Office said the planned layout of the apartment would not include staff rooms.

It said in a statement: “As well as being the consul general’s residence, it will also be used to support his work to help British businesses as Her Majesty’s trade commissioner for North America.”

It said it was in the process of selling the consul general’s current residence.

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