UK plans expansion of diplomatic network as Brexit nears
- Britain to open a new embassy in Djibouti and a new mission to Asean in Jakarta
- Britain is to hire nearly 1,000 more diplomatic staff
UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has announced a major expansion of Britain’s diplomatic network around the world, five months before it leaves the European Union.
For the first time, people from outside the civil service will be eligible to become ambassadors as the Foreign Office seeks to swell its numbers by almost 1,000.
In comments released ahead of a speech in London on Wednesday evening, Hunt said Britain would form “an invisible chain linking the world’s democracies”.
It will open a new embassy in Djibouti and a new mission to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in Jakarta.
This follows announcements earlier this year on new embassies in Chad and Niger, and nine new posts across the Commonwealth, from Lesotho and Swaziland to The Bahamas, Samoa and Vanuatu.
Hunt warned that “our democratic values are arguably under greater threat than at any time since the fall of the Berlin Wall” in 1989.
