UK plans diplomatic expansion post-brexit

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

With just ive 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 inluence, reach and power to defend our values by becoming an invisible chain that links the world’s democracies,” Hunt was to say in a speech, according to advance extracts.

Since Britain voted in a 2016 referendum to leave the EU, the government has repeatedly lagged 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 Ofice 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 and the relationship with the EU moved to other departments.

The Foreign Ofice’s operating expenditure fell by 21.6 per cent between 2010 and 2015 and was then frozen in real terms, spending watchdog the National Audit Ofice said last year.

The Foreign Ofice will also boost language training, increasing the number of languages taught at the department to 70 from 50, including the addition of Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Gujarati.