Britain plans expansion of diplomatic network after Brexit

 

Britain's Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt addresses the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, Britain September 30, 2018. REUTERS/Toby Melville

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is to hire nearly 1,000 more diplomatic staff as it looks to expand its links with countries around the world after Brexit, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt will announce on Wednesday.

 

They will comprise 335 new positions overseas, 328 in London and 329 new local staff around the world.

 

It will also create 12 new posts, either embassies or missions, with a new embassy in Djibouti and the upgrading of the office in Chad to a full embassy.

 

"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," Hunt will say in the speech entitled "Britain's role in the world after Brexit," according to advance extracts.

 

"We must reinvigorate and expand British diplomacy," he adds.

 

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

 

(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; editing by Stephen Addison)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-10-31

That will take care of any cost savings made by leaving the EU then.

But no doubt the British embassy and services in Thailand will continue with the current trend.. Less services and shrinking in size and opportunities....... 

Djibouti and Chad should certainly make a difference. Help to recover from the coming closure of Airbus & car manufacturing in Britain ...

6 hours ago, KittenKong said:

That will take care of any cost savings made by leaving the EU then.

But clearly you don't understand that all the trade from Kyrgyzistan and Khazkhistan etc will make up for all of that. Won't it? [Irony alert! we have to put that in these days just in case]

6 hours ago, KittenKong said:

That will take care of any cost savings made by leaving the EU then.

With a bit of luck this cross-tails with the a media report (from the main brexit thread) that a few hundred business leaders will be hired by the Gov't to develop international trade, rather than giving these jobs to civil servants?

Acting like or as a third world country..... Panicked? 

It's like the entire UK ruling class drank a potion that turned them into masochists after 1945.

But never mind, we'll get those nifty blue-black passports back, the ones we had before we walked away from a glittering Empire that's largely a collection of kleptocratic dust bowls now. The EU folly is just the final coffin nail

 

20 minutes ago, Small Joke said:

It's like the entire UK ruling class drank a potion that turned them into masochists after 1945.

But never mind, we'll get those nifty blue-black passports back, the ones we had before we walked away from a glittering Empire that's largely a collection of kleptocratic dust bowls now. The EU folly is just the final coffin nail

 

"It's like the entire UK ruling class drank a potion that turned them into masochists after 1945."

 

???? Pretty much "the entire UK ruling class" support remain!

15 minutes ago, dick dasterdly said:

"It's like the entire UK ruling class drank a potion that turned them into masochists after 1945."

 

???? Pretty much "the entire UK ruling class" support remain!

Oh you mean May and her Ministers? You're having a laugh. 

If that lot saw a personal disadvantage, the thing would have been overturned months ago, democracy be damned. 

 

15 minutes ago, Small Joke said:

Oh you mean May and her Ministers? You're having a laugh. 

If that lot saw a personal disadvantage, the thing would have been overturned months ago, democracy be damned. 

 

And that's the point....

 

May/ministers and MPs saw a huge disadvantage in overturning the referendum result - they would be proven to be liars and to have no interest in democracy.

 

Politicians are very concerned that they will put the final nail in the coffin when it comes to any respect they previously held and, more importantly (from their POV), how many MPs will lose their 'seats'?  Will they lose power?  Hence both Cons and Labour supporting the referendum result at the last GE.

 

Meanwhile, there are endless machinations to turn leave into 'leave in name only' - whilst trying to pretend that it's genuinely leave!

Well let's face it they needed to do something. My question is this. Why didn't they do this 2 years ago?

This diplomatic expansion includes restarting the issue of income letters for UK exiles and the dedicated office will be relocated above Chan's Coffee on KSR, (top floor, towards the back on the left-side... if you come across water tanks, you've gone too far).

Just now, Snow Leopard said:

Well let's face it they needed to do something. My question is this. Why didn't they do this 2 years ago?

Because they've belatedly realised that it's not going to be as easy to reverse the decision as they originally hoped...

 

Having said this, I'm assuming that the 'expansion' refers to proven business people promoting trade - not more career civil servants etc. etc.....

4 hours ago, Proboscis said:

But clearly you don't understand that all the trade from Kyrgyzistan and Khazkhistan etc will make up for all of that. Won't it?

It will. There's a massive market for dictionaries in those countries. And we can also export all our excess K and Z sign letters to them.