Aid groups warn Boris Johnson against combining DfID with Foreign Office

Charities caution that 'UK aid risks becoming a vehicle for UK foreign policy' if post-Brexit merger comes to fruition

A coalition of aid groups including the British Red Cross, Cafod and Oxfam GB has warned Boris Johnson that to abolish the Department for International Development would suggest Britain is "turning our backs on the world's poorest people".

One climate diplomacy expert said it would be "political suicide" to merge DfID with the Foreign Office in 2020, the same year the UK is hosting the UN climate summit, since the move would tie up senior civil servants when they were most needed to tackle the response to the climate crisis.