Britain loses grip on power as last top post is vacated
Sir John Holmes plans to step down from the UN later this year
Britain’s waning influence at the United Nations is set to dwindle even further with the departure of the last remaining British official in the upper echelons of the world body.
Sir John Holmes, the UN humanitarian chief, has told The Timesthat he plans to step down later this year in a move that could leave Britain with no representation among top officials at UN headquarters.
Sir John, now co-ordinating the international response to the Haiti earthquake, insisted that his departure was months away and refused to disclose what he would do next.
The Times has learnt, however, that he is to take over as director of the Ditchley Foundation, which runs international affairs conferences at the picturesque Ditchley Park estate in Oxfordshire.
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Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the foundation’s current head and a former British Ambassador to Iraq, plans to retire in the autumn.
As in the European Union, top posts at the UN are an important symbol of national prestige. Although the UN is supposed to be run by a neutral international civil service, the top jobs have always been shared out between the various power blocs in the 192-nation organisation.
All five veto-bearing powers — Britain, France, China, Russia and the US — traditionally lay claim to at least one under-secretary-general post at UN headquarters.
Britain’s influence has diminished since the arrival of Ban Ki Moon, a former South Korean Foreign Minister who became UN Secretary-General in 2007 after a deal between the US and China.
Under Mr Ban’s predecessor, Kofi Annan, a Ghanaian, Britain enjoyed a bonanza of top UN jobs. At one point Mr Annan had three high-ranking British officials on his staff: a British deputy in Mark Malloch Brown, later Lord Malloch Brown; a British political czar in Sir Kieran Prendergast, and a British security chief in Sir David Veness, Scotland Yard’s former top anti-terror officer.
Sir John is now the only Briton left with the rank of under-secretary-general at UN headquarters.
When Mr Ban took over the organisation, Britain petitioned him to make Sir John the UN’s political chief — a sensitive post that gives a country influence over the whole gamut of UN negotiations.
The political post has been held by a series of Britons since Sir Brian Urquhart, the long-serving official known as “Mr UN”, held the job from 1971-1985. But after Sir Kieran was forced out in 2005 in a row over Iraq, the post went to Ibrahim Gambari, a Nigerian.
Sir John, a former British Ambassador to Paris, was extremely well qualified to serve as the UN’s chief political officer, having been private secretary and diplomatic adviser to two prime ministers — John Major and Tony Blair.
Mr Ban rejected his candidacy for the political post in what appeared to be a calculated diplomatic snub in response to Britain’s lukewarm support for his campaign to become UN chief.
Instead, Mr Ban appointed an American, Lynn Pascoe, as his top political adviser and named Sir John as the UN’s humanitarian chief — a less powerful job.
The appointment raised eyebrows because of Sir John’s almost total lack of humanitarian experience. Many questioned the wisdom of putting a citizen of a major Western power in the post because of the difficulties he would have working in such places as Sudan. Sir John has been forced to learn on the job, confronting the periodic disasters that befall the world.
In recent weeks he has taken charge of relief efforts in Haiti following the devastating earthquake that claimed an estimated 230,000 lives.
Sir John recently voiced disappointment with the UN response in an internal e-mail that was leaked to Foreign Policy magazine. “This is a major test for all of us and we cannot afford to fail. So I ask you all to take a fresh hard look at what you are able to do in the key areas, and pursue a much more aggressive approach to meeting the needs,” he wrote.
British diplomats have told colleagues that London is unlikely to put forward another candidate to replace Sir John as the UN humanitarian chief. Instead, Britain is expected to lobby Mr Ban for another senior post, such as the political post of UN chief of staff. The new Government will have an opportunity to press Britain’s case when the Queen meets Mr Ban in a visit on July 6 to deliver her first address to the UN General Assembly since 1957.
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