LONDON: An Indian-origin senior British diplomat has quit the UK foreign office, criticising it for being woke, stuffed with paper-pushers and underperformers and putting the “worship of international law” above national security.In a column in the UK Times titled ‘Foreign Office fails to put Britain first’, Ameer Kotecha wrote: “Our impotence on Iran and craven surrender over Chagos happen when the long-term national interest is sacrificed to unquestioning worship of international law, the demands of noisy activist groups, or the appeasing of sectarian voting blocs.”He called for a “more ruthless focus on what benefits the British people” and said the govt’s decision to hand over the Chagos islands and UK PM Keir Starmer’s slowness to act on Iran influenced his decision to quit.“Rather than a really clear-sighted, level-headed assessment of what’s in the national interest and what’s good for the UK, we’re instead having our entire foreign policy dictated by what the lawyers tell us international law requires. I’m ashamed to serve this govt, so I’ve decided to throw the towel in,” he told the UK Times.Kotecha, an Oxford graduate, stepped down from his post at the British embassy in Tel Aviv last month. He said: “If the civil service was once a Rolls-Royce, it is now a banged-up hatchback driven by someone with decidedly dicey vision and a passionate hatred of driving. Our country will not get back on track until the car and the driver are made roadworthy once more.”He said on the day Kabul fell to the Taliban, he was invited to attend an event to mark World Afro Day (to celebrate Afro hair) and this week, with war raging in the Middle East, the main news on the foreign office intranet was about “taking charge of your development”.“In discussions about how the foreign office could improve productivity with AI, some colleagues were more concerned with an environmental impact assessment,” he said, adding some colleagues worked from home as “they didn’t want to work in a colonial office building.”
