Tory MPs have warned that the UK’s international influence is waning because of its failure to take leadership roles in global organisations seriously.
A report called on the UK Government to “urgently” improve getting people into international organisations to protect and promote “our place in the world”.
It says that the UK does not take seeking leadership positions in international companies seriously, allowing other countries to dominate organisations.
The Conservative MPs Liam Fox and Andrew Murisson, who co-wrote the Policy Exchange report, said the UK shifting its place on an international stage was crucial to success post-Brexit.
At present, “woeful representation” in areas such as finance or security “is handing an advantage to its strategic competitors”, they said.
The world’s top 30 organisations were examined in four domains – security, humanitarian and development, political and judicial, and financial and commercial.
Analysis shows that UK presence in the highest reaches of security-related organisations has halved, from 14 per cent of positions pre-1980 to 7 per cent since 2000.
In the financial and commercial domain, the UK’s share has fallen to the lowest out of all sectors – with just 3 per cent representation.
The report described a picture of “relative decline” in UK overseas influence.
Mr Murrison said a post-Brexit Britain must “use every tool in the box to advance its interests”.
“The UK is very good at getting its people into the top tiers of supranational bodies dealing with aid and development,” he said. “However, the most striking feature of this research is just how few of the really crunchy commercially facing top jobs are occupied by Britons and how few of those are taken by non civil servants.”
Dr Fox said: “Global Britain needs to have a hard-headed approach to where international influence lies. It must have more of an economic, trade and investment focus so that British businesses are functioning in the most optimum way in the most optimum markets. We need to influence the global economic trends that effect our prosperity.”
Lord Robertson, the Labour peer and former Secretary General of Nato, warned that countries such as China were executing international strategies while the UK sat back.
“As someone who led a major international organisation, I have long held the view that the UK does not take seeking such positions sufficiently seriously,” he said in the report’s foreword. “Nor in my opinion have we sufficiently looked after those who we nominate to such positions.”
He added: “I had seen, over my years involved in international affairs, other countries apparently dominating global and regional organisations and had thought that we were missing the boat.
“The report also flags up the warning that other countries do have Grand Strategies – and that they are executing them with remarkable vigour.
“Many people have already noticed the way in which China has penetrated so many important organisations – and at many levels. That provides both a warning – and a spur to what we must do.”