British Ambassador to Mexico fired over gun prank

Life pro tip: brandishing a gun at your staff does not foster a spirit of teamwork and inclusion. Jon Benjamin, the UK’s ambassador to Mexico, was dismissed from his post earlier this year after a video surfaced showing him pointing an assault rifle at a local embassy employee as a joke. The diplomatic faux-pas occurred during an official trip to the cartel-heavy states of Durango and Sinaloa, and was apparently made as a joke about the gun violence in the area. The video, shared anonymously on social media by disgruntled embassy staff, shows Benjamin in a stopped vehicle aiming the gun at a blurred-out colleague, while grinning. It was captioned ‘in a context of daily killings in Mexico by drug dealers, he dares to joke.’ Well, he’s not laughing now. The UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office confirmed they had taken action following the incident and removed him from his post. Benjamin, a career diplomat with extensive international experience, had been serving as ambassador to Mexico since 2021.