Brexit means UK’s world influence will wane, former MI6 chief warns
London — The former head of British foreign intelligence warned that the country would find it harder to influence international affairs after Brexit because its economy would decline. "Your power and influence in the world is directly related to the performance of your economy, so in the short term — the next five years or so — if I’m right that the economy is going to take a hit, then our influence will diminish in that period," former MI6 chief John Sawers told MPs from parliament’s upper house on Thursday during a hearing. Sawers, who voted for Britain to remain in the EU in the 2016 referendum, even suggested that perhaps the split would not go ahead: "Brexit, assuming it goes ahead," would make diplomacy harder with "difficult" countries like Russia, Iran and North Korea. What’s more, the UK cannot rely on the US to take up the slack, Sawers said. He made the point that the UK’s foreign and defence policy "has been predicated for the last 75 years on a very close partnership w...
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