UK orders its top diplomats to sell Brand Britain

LONDON — They've served in far-flung corners of the globe, but now Britain's top diplomats are being given an assignment closer to home.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy will send senior diplomats on a trip around the U.K. in July to gather investment ideas they can then pitch around the world, as he tries to turn the centuries-old Foreign Office into a "salesforce for the U.K. economy."

“I’m dispatching my top team across the country so they can be the best possible champions for British interests overseas,” Lammy told POLITICO.

Ambassadors to China, India, Japan, Norway and vital EU countries like Germany and France received a letter in April summoning them back. The traveling pack of ambassadors will be back in the U.K. in early July for what the government is calling a "domestic roadshow."

Over two weeks, they will fan out across the country, after the foreign secretary asked them to build relationships with Britain's devolved governments, its local mayors — and firms with an eye on overseas markets.

Planning meetings are underway to match diplomats with U.K. nations, mayors and the firms most relevant to their markets.

Lammy used a speech earlier this year to make clear that ambassadors should “give equal weight to their contacts in business as well as in politics.” They've been asked to draw up “strategic economic growth plans” with British trade commissioners as Labour pushes to turn around the stagnant U.K. economy.

“Our main aims for these roadshows are to strengthen the [Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office]’s links with the U.K. regions, focusing particularly on supporting [the government's]’s growth mission,” a senior Foreign Office official wrote to U.K. ambassadors in the April 29 letter inviting them home.

The British government plans to set out its industrial and trade strategies in the coming weeks. These will target eight potential growth sectors in the British economy, including defense, clean energy, life sciences, digital tech, advanced manufacturing and services. Ambassadors are hoping to visit firms linked to these during the roadshow.

“It is really important to us if we’re going to up our game that the whole embassy is involved in this,” said a U.K. government official.