Introduction. Diplomatic departures: negotiating Britain’s international outreach in the contemporary world

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Acknowledgment

The editors of the special issue would like to thank the institutions which contributed to a conference held on 2 October 2020 and from which several of the articles included here are derived – the Institut universitaire de France, CORPUS (UR UPJV 4295) at the Université de Picardie Jules Verne and CREW (UR 4399) at Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Roberts, ‘Valedictory Despatch’, 4.

2. Ludlow, ‘Brexit Negotiations’, 95.

3. Fletcher, The Naked Diplomat, xvii. Fletcher noted that Brexit is, ‘depending on where you stand, either Independence Day, a “quiet revolution”, or a suicide note’, ibid.

4. Ricketts, Hard Choices, 136. Before taking up the ambassadorship in Paris in 2012, Sir Peter Ricketts served as Britain’s first National Security Adviser and was also Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Head of Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Service in 2006–2010.

5. Rogers, 9 Lessons in Brexit.

6. Ricketts, Hard Choices, 161.

7. Ibid., 160.

8. Baroness Anelay of St John’s, ‘The UK’s Integrated Review overpromises and under-delivers’.

9. Saunders, ‘Brexit and Empire’.

10. H.M. Government, Integrated Review, 14.

11. Ibid., 13.

12. Marriott, ‘Embassies responding to crisis’, 246.

13. Hague, ‘Our diplomatic network’. In some countries however, the United Kingdom (and the United States) have ‘virtual embassies’, as in Iran, see Fletcher, The Naked Diplomat, 82.

14. Hague, ‘Future Diplomatic Network’, c. 1166–1167.

15. Knight, Niblett and Raines, Hard Choices, 18.

16. Hague, ‘Future Diplomatic Network’, c. 1166–1167. See also Bell, ‘Soft Power’, 83.

17. Nye, ‘Soft power’, 205; see also Nye, ‘Hard, soft, smart power’, 565.

18. Lloyd, Diplomacy with a Difference, 6.

19. See for instance Sanderson, Perfide Albion?.

20. Nicolson, Diplomacy, 191.

21. Gitelson, ‘Why small states break’, 469–470.

22. Ibid., 454.

23. Ibid.

24. Pastor-Castro and Thomas, Embassies in Crisis, 1.

25. Ibid., 1.

26. In Keys, ‘The diplomat’s two minds’, 14.

27. Wouters, Duquet and Meuwissen, ‘The Vienna Conventions’, 511.

28. The Overseas Resettlement Bureau was created in 1957 with the goal of helping former colonial civil servants relocate within public administration. See Kirk-Greene, On Crown Service.

29. Smith, ‘Crisis response’, 222.

30. Renwick, Not Quite the Diplomat, 11.

31. Barder, What Diplomats Do, 104.

32. House of Lords, ‘The EU’s External Action Service’, 50.

33. Barder, What Diplomats Do, 204.

34. See Derek F. Milton, High Commissioner to Jamaica (1989–1995), and Gordon Baker, High Commissioner to Belize (1995–1998) and Barbados (1998–2001), in Onslow and Kandiah, 30–31, 38.

35. Pastor-Castro and Thomas, Embassies in Crisis, 10.

36. Chafer and Cumming, ‘New Forms of Engagement’, 174.

37. House of Lords, ‘The EU’s External Action Service’, 10, 31.

38. Chafer and Cumming, ‘New Forms of Engagement’, 176.

39. Cumming, Chafer and Callan, ‘Conclusion’. The authors also note that cooperation can be noticeably more difficult with states where one of the former colonial powers remains a dominant partner.

40. Chafer and Cumming, ‘New Forms of Engagement’, 179.

41. Badel, Diplomaties européennes, 367.

42. Sellal, ‘Préface’, 10.

43. As Hague had put it, a wider diplomatic network would ‘mean that our reach when British companies need assistance or British nationals are in danger will go further and be stronger’. Hague, ‘Future Diplomatic Network’, c. 1167.

44. Marriott, ‘Embassies responding to crisis’, 232–233.

45. Balzacq, Charillon and Ramel, ‘Introduction’, 16.

46. Mayall, ‘Inroduction’, 6.

47. In Keys, ‘The diplomat’s two minds’, 11.

48. Ibid., 1.

49. Gaskarth, ‘Strategizing Britain’s role’, 561.

50. Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation, 7.

51. Tournès and Scott-Smith, ‘Introduction: A Word of Exchanges’, 7.

52. Byrne, ‘The Commonwealth University Interchange Scheme’, 67, 73ac.

53. Nye, ‘Evidence’, 5.

54. Nye, ‘Hard, soft, smart power’, 566.

55. Ibid., 571.

56. Niblett, ‘Written evidence’, 739.

57. Nye, ‘Soft power’, 198.

58. Nye, ‘Evidence’, 13. On soft power, see also House of Lords, Select Committee on Soft Power and the UK’s Influence, Persuasion and Power.

59. Bell, ‘Soft power’, 77.

60. Rawnsley, ‘British approaches to soft power’, 8.

61. Commonwealth Advisory Bureau, ‘Written Evidence’, Ev. 63.

62. Knight, Niblett and Raines, Hard Choices Ahead, viii.

63. See the long collection of volumes published by the historians of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office—focusing on British embassies (Beijing and Paris for instance) and high commissions (New Delhi, Canberra and the Caribbean) but also on particular crises (Grenada in 1983) or moments of negotiations (the Vietnam War, Lancaster House in 1979, or 1989).

64. Pastor-Castro and Thomas, Embassies in Crisis, 7.

65. Ibid., 16.

66. Young, ‘Introduction’, 1. On the importance of embassies, see also Hopkins, Kelly and Young.

67. Hughes and Platt, ‘Career structure’, 266–267.

68. Renwick, Not Quite the Diplomat, x.

69. Kessler, Les ambassadeurs, 177.

70. Roberts, ‘Valedictory Despatch’, 4.

71. Fletcher, The Naked Diplomat, 39.

72. In 1996, Pauline Neville-Jones resigned when the Paris ambassadorship was given to a man with less diplomatic experience. FCO Historians, ‘Women and the Foreign Office’, 25.

73. McCarthy, Women of the World, 259.

74. Britain’s first women to become head of mission were Eleanor Emery in 1973 (as High Commissioner to Botswana) and Anne Warburton (as Ambassador to Denmark) in 1976; only in 1987 did a married woman reach the position—Veronica Sutherland, appointed to the Ivory Coast. McCarthy notes that an ambassadorship (to Israel) was first offered to a (single) woman in 1962: the chosen diplomat, Barbara Salt, was unable to take up the job due to illness—and no other proposal was made to a woman before 1976; McCarthy, Women of the World, 296–297 ; see also FCO Historians, ‘Women and the Foreign Office’, 21.

75. Talking about ‘diplomatic tradecraft’, Hague emphasised that the expansion of Britain’s diplomatic network needed new resources in London itself, including a new language centre (with an emphasis on Arabic, Mandarin and Latin American Spanish and Portuguese) and a new ‘Expertise Fund’ (focusing on both ‘thematic and geographical policy’). Hague, ‘Our diplomatic network’.

76. Keys, ‘The diplomat’s two minds’, 11.

77. Jones-Parry, ‘A UK perspective’.

78. Gaulme, ‘A French perspective’.

79. Ricketts, Hard Choices, 161.

80. Gaskarth, ‘Strategizing Britain’s role’, 560.

81. Ricketts, Hard Choices, p. 146.