Take a good, hard look at the world and what do you see?
It certainly feels unpredictable. Old friends are unreliable, and the rules no longer seem to apply. For many, the global neighbourhood is getting distinctly scary.
But don’t take my word for it. Listen to the head of UK intelligence agency, MI6.
“The frontline is everywhere,” says Blaise Metreweli, who used a recent speech to warn of “the menace of an aggressive, expansionist” Russia, as well as aggressive and expansionist individuals.
Her worries have been restated in remarks made by a host of military leaders. “The situation is more dangerous than I have known during my career,” said the chief of the British defence staff Richard Knighton.
“The response requires more than simply strengthening our armed forces.”
Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper arriving at Munich Airport, Germany. Pic: PA
The specialists at the Foreign Office – including its embassies and consulates abroad – form a vital part of the country’s protective shield – and the woman in charge says she gets it.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced the formation of a “state threats unit” along with other initiatives to protect Britain in a world of “escalating hybrid threats”.
What senior officials are not talking about, however, are government plans to slash the workforce charged with countering these dangers.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (to use its full name) will be transformed under a new restructuring plan called FCDO 2030.
The process will result in approximately 2,000 job losses, or up to 25% of its total workforce – with fears of a jaw-dropping reduction of up to 40% in some London-based departments.
“The mood in some departments is despondent, even mutinous. (There is) very little trust in senior leadership of this organisation,” said one employee.
Another compared the atmosphere at the Foreign Office to the dystopian film The Hunger Games, with staff forced to compete for dwindling number of positions.
The PCS trade union, which represents employees at the Foreign Office, described the situation as “a mess”.
“We’ve seen no justification for these cuts and have yet to be told what work has been deemed disposable by senior leadership,” said a PCS official.
Curiously, those senior leaders – including the minister in charge of international development – have made it clear that they will be relying on the expertise of their own staff as they try to navigate massive funding cuts to programmes in the international aid budget.
“The shift from grants – to expertise is quite fundamental,” announced development minister Baroness Chapman, to the members of a parliamentary committee.
“Our influence is not about the size of our (direct spending) programme… but it is much more about our diplomatic work, our political connections, the role we play in the multilateral space.”
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper with Norwegian foreign minister Barth Eide in January. Pic: PA
The multilateral space is getting seriously challenging. Britain can no longer band together with members of the EU – nor lean on its relationship with the US – to get what it wants. Instead, it has to scrap for power and influence on its own.
The man effectively driving these cuts, permanent under-secretary Sir Oliver Robbins, told MPs that he is following a mandate set by former foreign secretary David Lammy, who viewed the Foreign Office as unfocused, top heavy and “not sufficiently strategic”.
Yet Robbins seemed to accept in discussions with MPs that some of the best people would bolt.
“We are working incredibly hard to try to make sure that we hang on to as much of what I agree is the extremely experienced talent that we need, at various degrees of seniority.”
The job losses have been greeted with howls of outrage.
MPs on the International Development Committee have described the cuts as “brutal”, and in an interim report, called for the plan to be “immediately paused”.
“Lives will be put at risk, not to mention the real risk to the UK’s global reputation. Once prized FCDO expertise is lost, it will be lost for good,” said committee chair Sarah Champion.
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Yet Sky News understands that those criticisms were dismissed at a recent Foreign Office “Town Hall” meeting between staff and Robbins.
“It is unheard of to ignore the recommendations of a parliamentary committee like this,” said an official from the PCS union.
Rory Stewart hits out, saying ‘We spend more on Kent County Council than our foreign policy’
Perhaps the most vigorous defence of the country’s diplomatic corps has come from a former minister, Rory Stewart, who has been highly critical of the government that he served in.
“In 2015 as we were destroying the Foreign Office and much of our overseas infrastructure, it was pathetic even then, even 10 years ago. The Foreign Office was half the size of the French equivalent. We spend more on Kent County Council than our foreign policy.”
Stewart says the current Labour administration is stumbling down the same dangerous path.
“We are creating a mad world where we have dismantled our soft power and somehow we believe we are going to be able to defend ourselves with a couple of aircraft carriers and nothing to protect them and some big nuclear weapons with nothing to surround them.”
In response to our reporting on FCDO 2030, a Foreign Office spokesperson said: “The FCDO is transforming to be more agile and focused, so we can deliver for the UK in a rapidly changing world.
“This is part of wider government reforms to deliver for the British people and ensure value for money for the taxpayer, while retaining our world-leading expertise in diplomacy and development.”
