UK to boost diplomatic network as Brexit nears

london — Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt will set out on Wednesday plans to “reinvigorate and expand” British diplomacy after years of budget cuts as the country looks to boost its influence around the world after Brexit.

With just five months until Britain leaves the European Union, its biggest foreign policy shift in more than 40 years, Hunt will say Britain plans to hire nearly 1,000 more diplomatic staff, open new embassies and boost language training. “Our democratic values are arguably under greater threat than at any time since the fall of the Berlin Wall... We can use our influence, reach and power to defend our values by becoming an invisible chain that links the world’s democracies,” Hunt will say in a speech, according to advance extracts.

Since Britain voted in a 2016 referendum to leave the EU, the government has repeatedly flagged its ambition for a ‘Global Britain’, but lawmakers and foreign policy experts have accused it of lacking a strategy or resources to deliver on that goal. The Foreign Office has faced budget cuts under successive governments which have seen it reduce embassy jobs and sell off exotic properties overseas. At the same time its remit has shrunk, with key policy areas including foreign aid, trade. The Foreign Office’s expenditure fell by 21.6 per cent between 2010 and 2015 and was frozen in real terms, spending watchdog the National Audit Office said last year. —