tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/brexit-9976/articlesBrexit – The Conversation2024-03-08T17:30:05Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2209562024-03-08T17:30:05Z2024-03-08T17:30:05ZThe Turing scheme was supposed to help more disadvantaged UK students study abroad – but they may still be losing out<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578679/original/file-20240228-8828-vvwi2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C25%2C2871%2C1888&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/youth-group-vacation-travel-city-329701265">Kichigin/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The loss of access for UK university students to the Erasmus+ scheme – a Europe-wide exchange programme that offers students the opportunity and funding to study or work abroad for up to a year – was a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/29/world/europe/brexit-erasmus-uk-eu.html">widely mourned</a> consequence of Brexit. </p>
<p>The UK government announced a replacement, the <a href="https://www.turing-scheme.org.uk/">Turing scheme</a>, in December 2020. This scheme funds education or training placements outside the UK – in theory, anywhere in the world. Unlike Erasmus+, though, it is not a reciprocal exchange scheme. It does not fund overseas students coming to the UK. </p>
<p>The first students took part in the academic year 2021-22, and the government published <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/turing-scheme-evaluation-of-year-1">an evaluation</a> of the first year the scheme in January 2024. It shows that while most student participants reported a positive experience, both the length of placements and the timeline of the application process may have penalised students from less well-off backgrounds. </p>
<p>When the UK government launched the Turing scheme, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-023-00995-0">widening participation</a> – making study abroad accessible to a more diverse group of students – was a <a href="https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/berj.3844">key objective</a>. The scheme was compared directly to Erasmus+ in this regard: it was argued by the UK government when they <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-023-00995-0">launched the scheme</a> that Erasmus+ had largely failed to attract more disadvantaged students. </p>
<p>According to the report, around 39% of Turing participants were from disadvantaged backgrounds. Directly comparable figures for Erasmus+ are difficult to attain, although there is a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0958928719899339#body-ref-bibr6-0958928719899339">widely held consensus</a> that the uptake of Erasmus+ placements by more disadvantaged young people was low.</p>
<p>A report by the <a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications/turing-scheme-understanding-impacts-and-implications/">British Academy</a>, published in November 2023, notes that significantly more students participated in the Turing scheme in 2021-2022 than had taken Erasmus+ placements each year. This may suggest some success in meeting the government’s widening participation objectives. </p>
<p>However, this report also observed that those from disadvantaged backgrounds in 2021-2022 received less funding from the Turing scheme average monthly stipend than they would have under Erasmus+. </p>
<p>What’s more, the application timeframe for the Turing scheme may have limited the ability of students from poorer backgrounds to take part. </p>
<p>The government’s report shows that students did not hear back about whether their applications for the Turing scheme and its associated funding had been successful until July. Many overseas placements required students to be in place by August, for the start of their academic year – less than a month later. Even those students starting their placement in September needed confirmation of funding before July. </p>
<p>This affected students from less affluent backgrounds, whose participation was wholly dependent on Turing funding. Some who could not afford upfront costs without the funding, or could not take the risk that funding would not be granted, <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6583029523b70a0013234d29/Turing_Scheme_year_1_evaluation.pdf">dropped out</a> of the scheme. </p>
<h2>Shorter stays</h2>
<p>The government’s new evaluation provides a useful profile of participants on the scheme during its first year. It shows that 67% were studying, while 33% were on work placements. Europe and North America were the most common destinations. </p>
<p>The length of the placement varied considerably. University students’ Turing placements lasted 109 days, on average. Students at further education and vocational education colleges, and school students, were also eligible for the scheme, but their placements were much shorter: an average of 26 days for college students and only seven days for school pupils. </p>
<p>Students at further education and vocational institutions are likely to be <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/improving-attainment-in-the-fe-and-adult-learning-sector/improving-attainment-among-disadvantaged-students-in-the-fe-and-adult-learning-sector-evidence-review-html#:%7E:text=Individuals%20from%20disadvantaged%20backgrounds%20are,to%20other%20post%2D16%20routes">less privileged</a> than those at universities. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/sites/default/files/field/downloads/2021-07/widening-participation-in-uk-outward-student-mobility.pdf">Research has suggested</a> that disadvantaged students are more likely to take shorter trips than longer stays. But shorter placements may not be as <a href="https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/berj.3844">valuable to students</a> as longer ones. </p>
<p>Length of placement <a href="https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/berj.3844">has been linked</a> to a better quality and value of experience, meaning that further education and vocational students may be further disadvantaged by the shorter placements on offer to them. </p>
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<h2>Difficult process</h2>
<p>The government’s report on the first year of the scheme noted that 79% of universities had found the application process difficult, compared to the more straightforward Erasmus application. </p>
<p>They also reported that the timescale for submitting the application was too short. The short timeframe prevented institutions from thinking innovatively about international placements. </p>
<p>Most fell back on what one described as “business as usual”. This presumably indicates that universities, colleges and schools made use of pre-existing relationships with overseas institutions rather than seeking new ones. </p>
<p>Despite apparent difficulties with the application process, 86% of providers reapplied in the second year of the scheme.</p>
<p>These administrative issues may, over time, be ironed out with adjustments to the application process. However, more fundamentally, some universities expressed concerns about the lack of reciprocity under the Turing scheme. This may provoke questions about the sustainability of relationships with other institutions that are not reciprocal. </p>
<p>It also has potential <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/psp.2727">geopolitical ramifications</a>. The UK may appear insular, unwelcoming and uninterested in fostering two-way and meaningful international relationships through the scheme. </p>
<p>What’s more, making students wait for funding outcomes is likely to put off less privileged students. This means that the actual impact of the Turing scheme on social mobility in the longer term, remains uncertain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220956/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Johanna L. Waters does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The application timeframe for the scheme may have limited the ability of students from poorer backgrounds to take part.Johanna L. Waters, Professor of Human Geography, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2216112024-01-30T19:09:51Z2024-01-30T19:09:51ZLabour hasn’t won a UK general election since 2005. Will 2024 be any different?<p>Democracy faces challenges around the globe in 2024: <a href="https://time.com/6550920/world-elections-2024/">at least 64 countries</a> will ask their citizens to elect a government this year. </p>
<p>One of the most keenly observed will be the United Kingdom general election, likely to be held in November. The British Labour party has not won an election since 2005, and has lost the last four elections. At the last election in 2019, it was beaten handsomely.</p>
<p>The 2019 result saw the Conservatives win 365 seats of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, while Labour limped in with 202 seats. At that point, Boris Johnson was an immensely popular political leader, single-handedly delivering the Conservatives a historic win. </p>
<p>Famously, Johnson broke down part of Labour’s “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/dec/11/keir-starmer-promises-red-wall-voters-the-basics-of-government-done-better">red wall</a>” seats – historically safe Labour seats in parts of Northern England. With Johnson’s emphatic win, and Brexit “done”, one writer predicted a further “decade of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/riding-the-populist-wave/4D4C82C02F8A80A03FD2EC18B5D8CACD">conservative dominance</a>”. </p>
<p>Yet, the decade of conservative dominance did not arrive, and on current reading the Conservatives look destined for opposition. The most recent poll confirms Labour’s long-standing 20-point lead over the Conservatives <a href="https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/">(45%-25%)</a>. Since the Brexit Referendum, there has been unprecedented volatility in British politics – not dissimilar to the leadership churn in Australia. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-dogs-brexit-johnsons-missteps-about-to-send-weary-voters-to-another-election-as-the-eu-divorce-gets-ugly-123000">A dog's Brexit: Johnson's missteps about to send weary voters to another election as the EU divorce gets ugly</a>
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<p>Since the 2016 referendum, the Conservatives have chewed through five different leaders from David Cameron to Rishi Sunak. Each successive leader has been ensnared in a range of crises, from Theresa May’s record common defeats over Brexit, Johnson’s handling of COVID, Sunak’s problems with inflation, and of course, the blitzkrieg politics of shock and incompetence of Liz Truss. The Conservative party has <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/battles-on-the-backbenches-what-are-the-different-factions-in-the-conservative-party-12964275">fragmented</a> and factionalised, with the hardline right pushing to veto key policies.</p>
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<p>The volatility has led to wider governing instability. Since 2019, there have been five home secretaries, and a remarkable six chancellors (the role of federal treasurer in Australia). This turmoil takes an incalculable toll on effective government, as policy settings continuously change, and the public service are left reeling in the aftermath. For the Johnson government in particular, personal loyalty and factional support trumped appointing competent ministers. </p>
<p>The case of Priti Patel is instructive. She was forced to resign as minister for international development in the May government in 2017 after <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/08/priti-patel-forced-to-resign-over-unofficial-meetings-with-israelis">it emerged</a> she had not been candid about unofficial meetings with Israeli ministers, businesspeople and a lobbyist.</p>
<p>Despite <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/article/comment/handling-priti-patel-bullying-inquiry-has-fatally-undermined-ministerial-code">breaching</a> the Ministerial Code of Conduct for allegations of bullying staff, she later became home secretary in Johnson’s government. </p>
<p>The political in-fighting and instability in the Conservative party fuelled volatility, which in turn has lead to voter disaffection. Suella Braverman is the other striking example, initially appointed home secretary under Truss, she also <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/bringing-back-suella-braverman-after-rule-breach-sets-dangerous-precedent-say-mps-12759991">breached the ministerial code</a> by sharing an official document from her personal email address. Sunak later appointed her home secretary, in part to appease the hard right of the party. However, in office, she proved to be a political liability, and was dismissed by Sunak. </p>
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<p>The turbulence has been highly damaging for Sunak. Any political leader needs clean air to reset the agenda, but his government has been mired. He aimed to shape his agenda around five key priorities. One year on, one <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/rishi-sunaks-five-pledges-one-year">report card</a> suggests he had only achieved one of these goals, and the critical ones (especially on immigration) are “off track”. </p>
<p>Immigration is the political battlefield the Conservatives will hope will help them, along with an improving economy, to help them retain office. The resonances here with Australian politics are all too familiar, and Sunak will be hoping for a repeat of the Liberals’ emphatic “<a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/David-Marr-and-Marian-Wilkinson-Dark-Victory-9781741144475/">dark victory</a>” at the 2004 election. However, Sunak is widely seen as <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/richer-than-the-king-rishi-sunak-hammered-by-focus-groups-in-swing-english-seats_uk_64c24ed9e4b044bf98f3742f">out of touch</a> with the wider public – his and his wife’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/22/rishi-sunak-rich-730m-fortune-prime-minister">vast wealth</a> has been the subject of much commentary.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/do-not-adjust-your-sets-with-truss-gone-the-uk-is-about-to-get-yet-another-prime-minister-192931">Do not adjust your sets: with Truss gone, the UK is about to get yet another prime minister</a>
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<p>This year’s election, then, looks increasingly like one Conservatives will lose – but it remains to be seen how well Keir Starmer’s Labour can win it. For some time, Labour has held a solid 20-point lead over the Tories in the <a href="https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/">polls</a>, yet to take office, Starmer will need a record 12.7% <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/britains-labour-would-need-record-vote-swing-win-majority-research-shows-2024-01-16/">swing</a>. Starmer’s team will take inspiration from Anthony Albanese’s 2022 win in Australia, a solid election result off the back of a crumbling centre-right government, but hardly an emphatic victory. The lesson there is that you need to win seats, not necessarily the vote share. </p>
<p>The dilemma for Starmer is that he was elected leader in 2020 <a href="https://www.clpd.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Keir-Starmers-10-Pledges.pdf">promising</a> to fulfil much of Jeremy Corbyn’s agenda. However, since that time, he has been seeking to recalibrate and reduce the range of his policy agenda. </p>
<p>Much of his energy has also been used to diminish the influence of the Corbyn-ite left in the party. While there is much long-term ambition in his five “missions”, some are light on detail, and others <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/keir-starmers-five-missions-labour-govern">rely on luck</a>. </p>
<p>Long-term Labour politician and scholar <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/dec/30/keir-starmer-detached-labour-party-jon-cruddas">Jon Cruddas’</a> lament is that Starmer’s vision is detached from Labour’s history. Labour looks set to take office, but it could be off the back of a large scale disaffection from the wider public, with voter <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1050929/voter-turnout-in-the-uk/">turnout</a> likely to decrease for the third election running.</p>
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<p><em>This article has been corrected. It originally stated Labour has not won an election since 2010. That has been changed to 2005.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221611/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rob Manwaring does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>After years of tumult in the ruling Conservative party, Labour looks set to take office. But it is no sure bet, and could be off the back of a large scale disaffection from the wider public.Rob Manwaring, Associate Professor, Politics and Public Policy, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2215032024-01-23T15:13:06Z2024-01-23T15:13:06ZWhat does Wales’ future hold? New report maps options for more devolution, federal and independent futures<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570678/original/file-20240122-25-8l3je8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C20%2C6968%2C2305&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales was set up in 2021 and has been gathering evidence since then.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/united-kingdom-vs-wales-welsh-smoky-1354803587">vladm/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="https://www.gov.wales/independent-commission-constitutional-future-wales">commission</a> set up to consider the constitutional future of Wales has published its <a href="https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2024-01/independent-commission-on-the-constitutional-future-of-wales-final-report.pdf">final report</a>. The Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales, co-chaired by former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams and Cardiff University’s Professor Laura McAllister, maps three different “viable” options.</p>
<p>First, they suggest “enhancing” devolution. This would see Wales operating similarly to how it does now, only with more powers for justice and policing, financial management and rail services. This option also proposes greater cooperation between Cardiff and London on energy and broadcasting.</p>
<p>Second, it suggests Wales joins a federalised UK system. This <a href="https://www.centreonconstitutionalchange.ac.uk/opinions/federal-future-uk">idea</a> often draws comparisons to the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/federalism">US model</a>. But the key feature here is granting Wales guaranteed legal rights and defined areas of responsibility, while the UK government handles broader matters like national security and international treaties.</p>
<p>Finally, it suggests a Wales which is fully independent from the UK.</p>
<p>While the commission finds all of the options to be possible, with advantages and disadvantages, it does not recommend one as the “correct” outcome. Instead it finds that there needs to be a constructive and evidence-based debate which engages Welsh citizens, so that an informed choice can be made. </p>
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<img alt="Rowan Williams stands next to Laura McCallister in the middle of a shopping street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570683/original/file-20240122-29-v8agms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570683/original/file-20240122-29-v8agms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570683/original/file-20240122-29-v8agms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570683/original/file-20240122-29-v8agms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570683/original/file-20240122-29-v8agms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570683/original/file-20240122-29-v8agms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570683/original/file-20240122-29-v8agms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Former Archbishop of Cantebury Dr Rowan Williams and Professor Laura McCallister co-chaired the commission.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Independent Constitutional Commission for Wales</span></span>
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<p>The Welsh government <a href="https://www.gov.wales/node/42768/latest-external-org-content?page=4">established</a> the commission in 2021. It was set up to ensure Wales is ready for any radical changes in the union, such as Scottish independence, for example. The panel included people from the four main political parties, various organisations and also surveyed the Welsh public.</p>
<h2>Criticising the status quo</h2>
<p>The report maps the deficiencies in the current devolution settlement. It identifies how the fall-out from Brexit has exposed the fragility of devolution, through Westminster disregarding the <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02084/">Sewel convention</a>. This states the UK parliament will “not normally” pass a law which is within the remit of the devolved legislature without the <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/legislative-consent/">agreement</a> of the devolved institution. However, the convention is not legally enforceable. </p>
<p>Since the <a href="https://www.consoc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Gordon-Anthony-Devolution-Brexit-and-the-Sewel-Convention-1.pdf">2016 referendum</a>, the report points out that the Sewel convention has been overridden on 11 occasions with virtually no scrutiny in Westminster. It finds that devolution is at risk of gradual attrition if steps are not taken to add legal enforcement to the current convention system.</p>
<p>In their <a href="https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2022-12/independent-commission-the-constitutional-future-of-wales-interim-report-december-2022.pdf">interim report</a>, published in December 2022, the commission found that the status quo is neither viable for the stability nor prosperity of Wales. However, in the <a href="https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2024-01/independent-commission-on-the-constitutional-future-of-wales-final-report.pdf">final report</a> the language surrounding this was revised slightly to reflect citizens having a choice to choose “no change”. </p>
<p>The language used by Professor McAllister at the Senedd report launch, however, was more critical. She expressed disappointment with the quality of evidence from those who should have been in a position to defend the status quo. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Final report launch event at the Senedd.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Communication and engagement</h2>
<p>Part of the commission’s work included surveying Welsh citizens. The report finds people in Wales are often unsure about who makes the decisions on different issues. Some people mistakenly believe areas like policing and broadcasting are already devolved to the Welsh government, while others incorrectly identified the UK government as being responsible for health. </p>
<p>The report offered insights as to why this may be the case. This includes an absence of a Welsh perspective on UK affairs in the media. For example, 73% of people agreed they don’t see or hear enough about how Wales is run. </p>
<p>Public confusion is another concern. When the UK government steps in on matters already devolved to Wales, citizens struggle to understand which government is calling the shots and on which issues.</p>
<p>It finds that 81% are very or fairly concerned about how Wales is run. But Welsh citizens also lack confidence in their knowledge of the governance of Wales when discussing the constitution in abstract terms. Despite the maturity of Wales’ democratic institutions, the commission finds that devolution does not yet enjoy citizens’ full confidence, and that Welsh democracy therefore needs strengthening. The findings stress the need for more democratic innovation and community engagement that is appropriately resourced. </p>
<p>The commission acknowledges the wider challenges surrounding the current UK environment, particularly in terms of declining trust in political institutions, and the polarisation of debates surrounding Brexit and COVID-19. It acknowledges that many conflate questions about constitutional structure with assessments of the government of the day, and so greater civic engagement is needed. </p>
<h2>What next?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2024-01/independent-commission-on-the-constitutional-future-of-wales-final-report.pdf">The commission</a> stresses that all options are theoretically viable. Which step is pursued is dependent upon the values and risks people are willing to accept. </p>
<p>The report details the harm independence would cause to the Welsh economy in the short to medium term, making it a particularly unattractive option in the current climate. It also states that support for an independent Wales, or indeed the abolition of the Senedd, are in the minority. </p>
<p>Regarding the federal model or Welsh independence, wider UK input would be needed. This is because some of the issues are outside the current <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8544/">competence of the Senedd</a>. </p>
<p>The option of an enhanced and protected devolution is more achievable, it says. But inter-governmental relations would need to be improved to achieve this. Some 92% of people surveyed believed it was important for governments to work together. The Welsh citizens who were questioned had little time for governments blaming each other, which ultimately feeds disaffection with politics entirely. </p>
<p>The next step must be about moving away from political point scoring and slogans, and widening the national conversation about what could be the best constitutional future for Wales. Politicians in the Senedd and Westminster will set the initial tone but that debate needs to be mature and evidence-based.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221503/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Clear does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales acknowledges each option requires UK government involvement.Stephen Clear, Lecturer in Constitutional and Administrative Law, and Public Procurement, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2206162024-01-11T12:50:05Z2024-01-11T12:50:05ZInequality is dividing England. Is more devolution the answer?<p>Twenty-five years ago, when new institutions of national government were created in <a href="https://www.parliament.scot/about/history-of-the-scottish-parliament/the-scottish-parliament-reestablished#topOfNav">Scotland</a> and <a href="https://senedd.wales/how-we-work/history-of-devolution/">Wales</a>, they reflected the widely held view that the Welsh and Scots should have more control over their economies, aspects of welfare provision and key public services. Yet at that time, hardly anyone thought devolution might be applied to England – despite it being the largest, wealthiest and most populated part of the UK.</p>
<p>Today, things look rather different. The notion of English devolution has morphed from being of interest only to constitutional experts to being a preoccupation of Britain’s politicians as we approach the next general election – many of whom have lost confidence in the capacity of central government to tackle the country’s most deeply-rooted problems.</p>
<p>A historic <a href="https://www.sunderland.gov.uk/article/29488/4-2bn-North-East-devolution-deal-gets-local-approval">£4.2bn devolution deal</a>, which will bring together seven councils under an elected <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_North_East_mayoral_election">mayor of the North East</a> in May 2024, is the latest attempt to address some of the deep geographical inequalities that disfigure and disenfranchise large areas of England.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, much of English local government is experiencing immense financial pressures, with large councils such as <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-67053587">Birmingham</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/nov/29/nottingham-city-council-wasnt-reckless-it-was-hollowed-out-by-austerity">Nottingham</a> declaring themselves at risk of bankruptcy while others <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/economic-growth/regional-development/2023/07/council-rescue-package-finance-bankruptcy">teeter on the edge of a financial cliff</a>. In many parts of England, it is <a href="https://www.bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk/publications/devolving-english-government/">increasingly unclear</a> who local residents should hold accountable for public service provision – in part due to the amount of outsourcing to the private sector that has become routine.</p>
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<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em></p>
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<p>“Take Back Control” was the slogan of the Vote Leave campaign leading up to the Brexit referendum of September 2016. It may not be a coincidence that the country which played the key arithmetical role in determining its outcome – England – was the only one where devolution had not been introduced, and where many non-metropolitan residents felt their views and interests counted for little in the citadels of democratic government. </p>
<p>Since then, more years of political turbulence, economic shocks intensified by the COVID pandemic, and the government’s <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/17/levelling-up-housing-and-communities-committee/news/195434/levelling-up-policy-will-fail-without-longterm-substantive-funding-for-councils-say-mps/">failure to “level up”</a> as pledged, have combined to erode the allegiance and goodwill of many of its citizens. What this means for the future of a UK union-state model that has rested, to a considerable degree, upon English assent is likely to become one of the key political – and constitutional – issues of our time.</p>
<h2>What is English devolution for?</h2>
<p>In fact, the idea of establishing a new layer of government between Whitehall and England’s complicated network of local councils has engaged the attention of successive governments since the 1960s. But questions about the form, scope and functions of this “middle” layer gradually turned into a party-political football, with governments of different colours inclined to reverse the arrangements put in place by their predecessor. And the wider democratic ambition hinted at by the term “devolution” was largely absent from these reforms.</p>
<p>Whereas in Scotland and Wales, devolution was long ago couched in terms of democratic advance and national self-determination, in England it was largely regarded as a mere extension of central government’s approach to regional policy-making – and even the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/5fe17864-ae02-11e4-919e-00144feab7de">advent of elected “metro mayors”</a> did little to change this view. But now, politicians from both main political parties have come to believe in a new, sub-national model that can be badged as England’s own version of devolution.</p>
<p>A spate of deals involving the voluntary combining of different councils were announced in 2022, including for <a href="https://www.northyorks.gov.uk/your-council/devolution">North Yorkshire</a>, the East Midlands and the North East, and again in Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s 2023 <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/autumn-statement-2023-speech">autumn statement</a> for Lancashire, Greater Lincolnshire and <a href="https://www.prolificnorth.co.uk/news/autumn-statement-devolution-for-hull-tax-cuts-for-unemployed-500m-for-innovation-centres-and-ai-but-weaker-growth-predicted/#:%7E:text=and%20Jeremy%20Hunt-,Autumn%20statement%3A%20Devolution%20for%20Hull%2C%20NI%20cuts%20for%20all%2C,AI%2C%20but%20weaker%20growth%20predicted&text=Hull%20City%20Council%20and%20East,Chancellor%20Jeremy%20Hunt's%20autumn%20statement.">East Yorkshire</a>. And a report by Labour’s <a href="https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Commission-on-the-UKs-Future.pdf">Commission on the UK’s Future</a>, chaired by former prime minister Gordon Brown, signalled that the party should <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/brown-commission-constitutional-reform">extend the current government’s programme</a> of English devolution.</p>
<p>This idea lay at the heart of Boris Johnson’s ambitious programme while he was prime minister for addressing the deep disparities in productivity and social outcomes that exist in England, to which he gave the grand but elusive title “levelling up”. This plan – set out in a <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/62e7a429d3bf7f75af0923f3/Executive_Summary.pdf">lengthy white paper</a> in February 2022 – seems, for the most part, to have fallen by the wayside now that Johnson has left the political stage. But it still marked an important staging post in the journey of the once-niche idea of English devolution. Both main political parties have signed up to this principle and have indicated they will create more devolved authorities should they win the next general election.</p>
<p>Advocates sometimes point to an extensive – though hotly contested – body of research on the positive consequences for local economies of taking policy decisions at levels closer to the people they affect. One influential theoretical support for this idea highlights what economists call the “<a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Opportunities-for-tacit-knowledge-transfer-within-a-Moloney/f1a8daa5aea06468c03a1a7142c2122661a1a281">tacit knowledge</a>” about a place, which is often vital to understanding the particular policies and initiatives that are likely to yield most benefit there.</p>
<p>What can be said with more confidence is that a lot hinges on the quality of the institutions that are created, and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00323217221136666">how well funded they are</a>.</p>
<p>Others argue that a more decentralised system of political authority is more likely to win the allegiance of, and secure more engagement from, people throughout England – in a context where <a href="https://www.ippr.org/blog/freefall-how-a-year-of-chaos-has-undermined-trust-in-politics">trust in the UK’s political class has plummeted</a>, where <a href="https://www.bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk/publications/devolving-english-government/">MPs are less popular</a> than local councillors, and where there is widespread disenchantment with the perceived bias of central government towards London and the south-east. </p>
<p>However, to what extent does the record of England’s existing “<a href="https://www.centreforcities.org/publication/everything-need-know-metro-mayors/#whois">metro mayors</a>” support this case?</p>
<h2>‘King of the north’</h2>
<p>When the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, <a href="https://twitter.com/Femi_Sorry/status/1318576386949468164?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1318582661317824515%7Ctwgr%5Ed6e9e68efd3b3c853ef8fce56165ad44c52f62c3%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mirror.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2Fking-north-andy-burnham-labelled-22878379">staged an impromptu press conference</a> in the street outside Manchester town hall to protest against the local lockdown that the UK government wanted to introduce in the north-west of England in October 2020, his stance received considerable local support – to the extent that he briefly <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/king-north-andy-burnham-labelled-22878379">acquired the nickname</a> “king of the north”. Since his election as mayor in May 2017, Burnham has led a number of high-profile initiatives on issues such as <a href="https://www.greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk/news/mayor-hails-pioneering-housing-scheme-that-transformed-homelessness-response-in-greater-manchester-as-number-of-people-on-streets-falls-further/">homelessness</a>, and overseen the integration of health and local social care services.</p>
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<p>Similarly, it is unlikely that a backbench MP would have been able to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/04/tory-mayor-andy-street-considering-quitting-over-rishi-sunak-hs2-u-turn">wrest concessions</a> from a prime minister as did the Conservative mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, after he made public his <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/09/27/hs2-route-scaled-back-jeopardise-investment-andy-street/">opposition to Rishi Sunak’s decision to cancel the HS2 rail project</a> in September 2023.</p>
<p>While the responsibilities held by England’s metro mayors are, by international standards, pretty limited, they are at times able to deploy what political scientists term the “soft power” that comes from being the acknowledged leader of, and voice for, a locality. They also tend to be more independent of their own party machines than MPs are, going out of their way, when it suits them, to dissent from their parties’ London-based leaderships.</p>
<p>But it would be unwise to get too starry-eyed about a system that relies so heavily on soft power rather than the allocation of formal responsibilities. The absence of an elected legislature tasked with scrutinising and legitimating the work of these leaders – who are typically, and often not very effectively, held to account by local council leaders – is a significant further constraint on their ability to act as democratically legitimate changemakers.</p>
<p>This is very different to the model established in London, which had its <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/article/explainer/mayor-london-and-london-assembly">own government restored</a> by the first government of Tony Blair in 1999 following a city-wide referendum. The Greater London Authority is made up of elected representatives whose job it is to scrutinise the elected mayor, currently Sadiq Khan, and his administration. </p>
<p>In contrast, metro mayors elsewhere in England – tasked with delivering policies and overseeing funding allocations in areas of priority set by central government – are typically frustrated by the limits imposed on their own agency. Nor do they have the fiscal tools, both in terms of raising revenue and borrowing against financial assets, that are typical of many city and regional governments outside the UK.</p>
<p>The idea of having mini-parliaments across England’s regions, on a par with the legislatures established in Scotland and Wales, was dealt a fatal blow in 2004. During the course of the Blair governments, his long-time deputy prime minister, John Prescott, had pressed for the gradual conversion of the English regional development agencies Labour had created into a form of elected regional administration. But this died a very public death when <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2004/nov/05/regionalgovernment.politics">voters in the north-east overwhelmingly rejected the idea</a> – despite having been selected as the region most likely to support it.</p>
<p>Twenty years on, the suite of new city-regional authorities being created risks deepening the existing cleavage between England’s major cities and those parts of the country without a large urban metropole. Indeed, some of the devolution agreements recently announced had been stalled for years by the unwillingness of particular authorities to participate in these initiatives. The deal encompassing the cities of the north-east, for example, was held up for years by the refusal of Durham County Council to join its larger urban neighbours.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/inspiring-the-devolution-generation-in-greater-manchester-75790">Inspiring the ‘devolution generation’ in Greater Manchester</a>
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<p>The idea that establishing leadership at the level of a large city and its surrounding hinterland can improve the quality of democratic life, and create a more responsive layer of government, remains appealing for many, despite the unsteady emergence of this model in England.</p>
<p>However, amid attempts by UK politicians and administrators to present this as equivalent to the clearer and more robust forms of governance introduced in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, another important question has emerged. Namely, whether the English have come to feel some jealousy and suspicion about these new forms of government established outside England – and less enthusiasm for the union as a whole.</p>
<h2>A national grievance?</h2>
<p>The idea that England and the English need to be recognised as a distinct national entities within a multi-national union has more popular resonance in an era when debates over sovereignty, national identity and self-determination have become integral to political life</p>
<p>For some, this imperative arises from the belief that changes associated with devolution elsewhere have served to put the English majority at a disadvantage. Some express this in financial terms, arguing that England’s taxpayers have been funding the <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/article/explainer/barnett-formula">more generous per-capita settlements</a> awarded to Northern Ireland and Scotland. Others see it as a reflection of the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-politics-of-english-nationhood-9780198778721?cc=gb&lang=en&">revealed preference of the British political establishment</a> to appease those living in these areas, by awarding their inhabitants additional political rights while neglecting the inhabitants of England’s non-metropolitan areas.</p>
<p>Following the establishment of new parliaments in Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff, and the absence of any such model for England, the idea that these reforms have created an imbalance which <a href="https://www.democraticaudit.com/2013/08/15/unfinished-devolution-has-created-constitutional-imbalances-in-the-uk/">puts the largest part of the UK at a disadvantage</a> has become a familiar political sentiment. This was particularly salient when the ability of MPs sitting in Scottish and Welsh seats to vote on contentious legislative proposals that applied only to England became a <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/research/research-archive/nations-regions-archive/english-question">controversial political issue</a> – as in 2004, when the Blair government introduced <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/key-issues-for-the-new-parliament/value-for-money-in-public-services/funding-higher-education/#:%7E:text=As%20a%20result%20of%20the,2004%20Act%20was%20highly%20controversial.">controversial legislation</a> requiring students at English universities to pay some of their tuition costs.</p>
<p>The constitutional problem created by this imbalance had been aired in parliament by a number of MPs and members of the House of Lords when devolution was first introduced in the late 1990s. Some argued that one of the unintended effects of these changes might be to engender a feeling of national grievance – perhaps even a reactive nationalism – among the English. But for the most part, this prospect was ignored or scoffed at by politicians from both main political parties.</p>
<p>Soon after the new parliaments were established, however, the question of how reforms elsewhere would affect England – and whether it too needed a mechanism to signal the consent of its MPs to legislation that only affected England – moved into the political mainstream. Some campaigners and MPs suggested that only the <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/sites/constitution-unit/files/179-options-for-an-english-parliament.pdf">establishment of an equivalent English parliament</a> could address the profound imbalance created by the devolution granted to the other UK countries.</p>
<p>In 2015, the David Cameron-led Conservative government introduced a new set of rules for dealing with those parts of legislation that related to England only. Known by the acronym <a href="http://evel.uk/how-does-evel-work/">EVEL</a> (short for “English vote for English laws”), these reforms proved <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/sites/constitution-unit/files/EVEL_Report_A4_FINAL.pdf">immensely complicated to operate</a> and elicited little enthusiasm among MPs, while being almost unknown to the wider public. They were quietly abolished by Johnson’s Tory government in 2020.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tory-votes-for-tory-laws-camerons-evel-plan-to-cut-out-the-opposition-44246">Tory votes for Tory Laws? Cameron's EVEL plan to cut out the opposition</a>
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<p>While the idea of remaking the UK along federal lines, with each part of the state having its own parliament for domestic legislation, enjoys some support and may grow in appeal, Britain’s politicians and the vast majority of its constitutional experts remain decidedly cool towards this idea. They believe that pushing in this direction could lead to the dissolution of the UK given the preponderant size and wealth of England – meaning it would have a disproportionate amount of influence within a federated UK.</p>
<p>Such a reform is unwarranted on this view, because England is already the most powerful and important part of the UK governing system, with an overwhelming majority of MPs sitting in English seats. But once the question of how and where England sits within the UK’s increasingly discordant union was raised, it would never be easy to put it back into obscurity.</p>
<h2>‘When will we get a vote?’</h2>
<p>According to some <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/englishness-9780198870784?cc=gb&lang=en&">survey evidence</a>, the people in England most likely to believe their country is losing out in the UK’s current devolution settlement are those most inclined to feel that central government is too distant from – and neglectful of – their lives. They were also the most likely to vote to get the UK out of the EU in 2016.</p>
<p>This sentiment was already a sensitive political topic by the mid-2000s, when Conservative MPs became concerned about the implications of devolution elsewhere for the English, while their Labour counterparts typically preferred to hymn the virtues of regional devolution, particularly in northern England. But how the English and their political representatives felt about these issues took on new relevance during the Scottish independence referendum of 2014.</p>
<p>Towards the end of this contest, an announcement of further devolution to Scotland was made in the form of a <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/wales/update/2015-01-22/the-vow-to-scotlands-been-kept-claims-cameron/">much-trumpeted “vow”</a> endorsed by the leaders of the Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem parties. Whether this promise of new powers for the Scottish government made any difference to the outcome of this historic poll is highly debatable. But what was notable was the hostile reaction it elicited in different parts of England – including on the part of many Tory MPs towards their prime minister. Such was the level of annoyance it stirred, Cameron was compelled to hold a gathering at his country retreat, Chequers, to assuage the mutinous mood of these backbenchers.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.centreonconstitutionalchange.ac.uk/sites/default/files/migrated/news/Both%20England%20and%20Wales%20oppose%20Scottish%20Independence.pdf">Surveys have suggested</a> that a sizeable minority of the English held strong views about the outcome of the Scottish referendum – with about 20% of respondents happy for the Scots to go, and around the same number worried about the impact of Scotland leaving the UK. But another sentiment was palpable at this time. “When will we get a vote?” was a question I recall being put to me again and again by English audience members at various panel discussions over the summer of 2014. Behind it lay a sense of frustration that, in comparison with the Scots, the English were being left disenfranchised as their allegiance to the governing order was taken for granted.</p>
<p>The contrast between the narrow terms in which the “English question” was framed at Westminster and the growing appeal of powerful ideas about sovereignty, democratic control and national self-determination in this period is striking. And it formed an important prelude to the rebellion of the English majority in the Brexit referendum of 2016 when, finally, they were given a vote on an issue of constitutional importance, with profound economic and societal results.</p>
<p>Despite all that’s since been said about that Brexit vote and its impacts, the question of what happens when a national majority becomes more restive about the multinational arrangements in which it sits demands further consideration in this context. As I argue in my new book, <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/fractured-union/">Fractured Union</a>, the future prospects of the UK’s union may even depend on it.</p>
<h2>A lesson from history?</h2>
<p>One – perhaps slightly unexpected – international example worth considering here is Czechoslovakia, which split into the separate states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia on January 1 1993. Despite many differences in context – not least its long history of rule by the Communist party, and the centrifugal dynamics let loose by the party’s disintegration in 1989 – aspects of this story are highly relevant to the current situation facing the Anglo-Scottish Union in particular.</p>
<p>The break-up of Czechoslovakia did not emanate directly from nationalist demands among the populace, but was significantly determined by decisions made at the political level. Just six months prior to the vote, support for the option of splitting Czechoslovakia into two wholly independent states was as low as 16% in both parts of the country. And there is every chance that a referendum on this issue (which came close to happening) would have produced a majority for the continuation of the status quo.</p>
<p>Two decades earlier, in 1968, new legislation established to protect the Slovaks from being dominated by the Czech majority held that constitutional and other important laws had to be passed on the basis of “special majorities”. These provisions were the source of constant grumbling and some resentment on the Czech side, being perceived as anti-democratic checks upon the will of the majority.</p>
<p>Under the political control of the Communist party, these differences were overridden by the party’s interest in the preservation of the wider state. But once Communism ended and a democratic model was introduced, friction between ideas of Slovakian sovereignty and the imperatives of a federal state model accentuated the underlying tensions between these nations and the parliaments where they were represented. In some echo of the Anglo-Scottish situation, many Czechs resented a perceived imbalance at the scale of representation of the Slovaks within the federal government, and <a href="https://journals.akademicka.pl/politeja/article/view/903">questioned the disproportionate transfer of resources</a> to the poorer Slovakian territory.</p>
<p>Despite extended and fraught negotiations over the constitutional framework, the gulf in the constitutional outlooks of politicians from these territories was considerable, with both sets espousing entirely different constitutional perspectives. Agreement was finally reached on a new federal framework in November 1991, but this deal was voted down by the Slovak parliament. Its Czech equivalent thereafter declared that further negotiation with the Slovak side would be pointless.</p>
<p>At the parliamentary elections of June 1992, the main winners in both territories were the political parties least inclined to compromise with the other side. Having given up on negotiations, and with the prospect of a referendum in Slovakia on its future within the state having been abandoned too, the Czech government moved towards the idea of a <a href="https://journals.akademicka.pl/politeja/article/view/913">speedy and complete division</a>.</p>
<h2>Could it happen in the UK?</h2>
<p>Czechoslovakia’s split throws into relief the key role politicians can play in moments of constitutional crisis, as well as the corrosive effect of <a href="https://www.karlobasta.com/symbolic-state">feelings of neglect and unfairness among a national majority</a> that can build up over time. It highlights, too, the challenge of sustaining a union when politicians at central and sub-state levels hold irreconcilable constitutional worldviews, and are fishing for votes in different territorial ponds.</p>
<p>Is it conceivable that some British politicians could, at some point, seek advantage by mobilising an appeal to the English majority against the claims and complaints of the smaller nations in the UK? And might the emergence of public scepticism within parts of the Tory party towards the models of devolved government in Cardiff and Edinburgh be understood as the first signs of such a dynamic?</p>
<p>There have already been moments in the recent political past when the appeal to the defence of neglected English interests has been politically powerful – for instance, during the 2015 general election campaign when the Conservatives deployed images of Labour’s leader, Ed Miliband, sitting in the pocket of the SNP’s leader, Nicola Sturgeon. And this may well recur as a theme in future Westminster elections, particularly if the SNP is able to recover from its current downturn.</p>
<p>However, in the longer run, what will do most to determine how the disaffected inhabitants of “provincial” England feel about devolution – and the lure of greater recognition and protection for English interests – is the quality of governance, service provision and economic opportunity they experience.</p>
<p>In recent years, despite the introduction of metro mayors, there has been little success in closing the regional gaps which “levelling up” was designed to address, and there is a real prospect of yet more local authorities going bankrupt. It would be little wonder, then, if the calls for greater priority to be paid to the concerns of the English heartland grow louder in years to come.</p>
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<p><em>For you: more from our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Insights series</a>:</em></p>
<ul>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/freedom-of-thought-is-being-threatened-by-states-big-tech-and-even-ourselves-heres-what-we-can-do-to-protect-it-220266?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Freedom of thought is being threatened by states, big tech and even ourselves. Here’s what we can do to protect it
</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/mr-bates-vs-the-post-office-depicts-one-of-the-uks-worst-miscarriages-of-justice-heres-why-so-many-victims-didnt-speak-out-220513?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Mr Bates vs The Post Office depicts one of the UK’s worst miscarriages of justice: here’s why so many victims didn’t speak out
</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-urgently-needs-more-imagination-competence-alone-will-not-save-us-from-this-polycrisis-193886?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Politics urgently needs more imagination. Competence alone will not save us from this ‘polycrisis’
</a></em></p></li>
</ul>
<p><em>To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversation’s evidence-based news. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK"><strong>Subscribe to our newsletter</strong></a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220616/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Kenny receives funding from the British Academy and (previously) the Economic and Social Research Council. His latest book is Fractured Union: Politics, Sovereignty and the Fight to Save the UK (Hurst, January 2024).
</span></em></p>Years of political turbulence, economic shocks and the failure to ‘level up’ as pledged have turned English devolution into a key political and constitutional issueMichael Kenny, Professor of Public Policy, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2194752024-01-03T20:54:55Z2024-01-03T20:54:55ZAlberta sovereignty push: Learning from the economic fallout of similar separatist movements<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/alberta-sovereignty-push-learning-from-the-economic-fallout-of-similar-separatist-movements" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, while not explicitly advocating for outright independence, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/danielle-smith-sovereignty-act-judge-power-company-executive-1.7041743">continues to promote increased provincial autonomy.</a> </p>
<p>A shift from a theoretical discussion to actively pursuing an independence referendum by Smith or her successors could have <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-danielle-smith-veer-back-to-the-right-and-towards-alberta-separatism-207195">dramatic economic consequences for Alberta and Canada</a> similar to the impact separatist movements have had in other parts of the world, including in Spain and the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>In Canada, western alienation has persisted for <a href="https://centre.irpp.org/research-studies/the-persistence-of-western-alienation/">more than a century</a>, and polls show that <a href="https://biv.com/article/2023/07/even-albertans-arent-favour-separatism-survey-shows">27 per cent of Albertans</a> aged 18 to 34 support the concept of an independent Alberta. </p>
<p>Conventional wisdom holds that Alberta separation is unlikely to ever happen. But the stakes are too high to ignore the possibility of Alberta breaking away.</p>
<h2>‘Alberta Agenda’</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20061224170836/http://www.albertaresidentsleague.com/letter.htm">Alberta Agenda letter</a>, written in 2001, has influenced Alberta’s approach to federal relations over the last two decades. Among other changes, the letter proposed replacing the Canada Pension Plan with an Alberta Pension Plan and establishing an Alberta police force. </p>
<p>In line with the Alberta Agenda, the provincial government under then-premier Jason Kenney <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8326174/kenney-equalization-daylight-saving-time-referendum-results/">held a referendum in 2021</a> on the question of whether provisions requiring equalization payments should be eliminated from Canada’s Constitution. </p>
<p>While the majority (61.9 per cent) <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/referendum-alberta-equalization-daylight-time-senate-1.6225309">voted yes</a>, such a Constitutional change cannot be made without support from six other provinces. </p>
<p>Kenney’s referendum did not fully satisfy Alberta separatists and “Freedom Convoy” supporters, <a href="https://publicorderemergencycommission.ca/files/documents/Policy-Papers/Social-Cleaveges-Alberta-Separatism-and-the-Freedom-Convoy-Wesley.pdf">two groups that share a number of similarities</a>, leading to an <a href="https://www.readtheorchard.org/p/how-to-take-back-alberta-and-influence?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2">internal party rebellion</a> that resulted in Smith replacing Kenney as premier in 2022.</p>
<p><a href="https://macleans.ca/longforms/unsteady-reign-danielle-smith/">Smith has kept key elements</a> of the Alberta Agenda front and centre during her first year as premier. </p>
<p><a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/pure-magical-thinking-albertans-filled-premiers-inbox-with-emails-opposing-provincial-pension-plan">She’s advocating</a> for the Alberta Pension Plan, even though <a href="https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/full/10.3138/cpp.2023-044">experts have deemed it risky</a> and polls indicate <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/most-albertans-don-t-want-the-province-to-pull-out-of-cpp-survey-finds-1.6682653">weak support for the proposal</a>.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, it’s likely Alberta separatist groups will keep pressuring Smith to pursue this agenda item — and Smith has suggested she won’t back down. During the provincial election campaign, she vowed to defend Alberta in the face of alleged unfair treatment by Ottawa.</p>
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<p>She soon introduced the Alberta Sovereignty Act, which the NDP labelled a step <a href="https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/alberta-ndp-says-premier-s-rejection-of-federal-authority-lays-separation-groundwork-1.6187240">towards separation</a>. Even Kenney criticized its potential to lead Alberta to the <a href="https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/09/07/news/kenney-separation-plan-pitched-possible-successor">brink of separation, which he said would damage the rule of law and the economy</a>.</p>
<h2>Similarities to Spain</h2>
<p>Canada’s current experience of separatist movements mirrors Spain’s to some extent. Traditionally, the province of Québec in Canada and the Basque region in Spain have been the primary regions pushing for independence. </p>
<p>However, Catalonia’s <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/9f2477f0-9eec-11e7-8cd4-932067fbf946">separatist movement</a> in Spain, which has now surpassed the Basque movement, represents a rapid rise of the kind that could conceivably be seen in Alberta.</p>
<p>In Catalonia, the rise in separatist sentiment was triggered by perceived <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12412">unfair economic treatment</a> from Spain’s central government. </p>
<p>The Catalan independence movement reached its pinnacle in 2017 when an <a href="https://time.com/4951665/catalan-referendum-2017/">unauthorized independence referendum was held</a>. The political leaders who participated in it <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/spanish-supreme-court-sentences-catalan-separatists-to-jail/2019/10/14/a0590366-ee59-11e9-89eb-ec56cd414732_story.html">were eventually imprisoned</a>. These events led to significant economic disruption, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2022.07.024">a negative impact on the Spanish business environment</a>. </p>
<p>Today, support for Catalonia’s independence has fallen to <a href="https://www.elperiodico.com/es/politica/20230113/encuesta-independencia-catalunya-icps-uab-81112066">less than 50 per cent</a>, although <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/18/large-protests-against-catalan-amnesty-deal-in-madrid-after-pm-sworn-in">the political impact lingers on</a> as two small Catalan separatist parties currently wield <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/who-are-catalonias-separatist-parties-why-do-they-matter-2023-09-29/">signficant influence over Spanish politics</a>.</p>
<p>The decline in Basque separatism and the rise in similar Catalan sentiment in the last two decades may relate to the two regions’ relative economic performance.</p>
<p>The Basque region has experienced <a href="https://www.elcorreo.com/economia/euskadi-comunidad-mayor-crecimiento-economico-2024-segun-bbva-20230628123809-nt.html">strong economic growth</a>, while the fallout from the events of 2017 seems to have <a href="https://www.lavanguardia.com/economia/20230910/9217134/cataluna-seria-segunda-region-menor-crecimiento-pib-crisis-2017-airef.html">dampened Catalonia’s economic prosperity</a> compared to other regions in Spain.</p>
<h2>Brexit parallels</h2>
<p>The U.K. offers other similarities to the rise of Albertan separatist sentiments.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/22/world/europe/david-cameron-brexit-european-union.html">The Brexit referendum, driven by the U.K. Independence Party and conservative factions under David Cameron</a>, prime minister at the time, was intended to quell separatist sentiments. However, it defied poll predictions, leading to the U.K.’s breakaway from the European Union. </p>
<p>Brexit has been a <a href="https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/impact-brexit-uk-economy-reviewing-evidence">major factor in the U.K.’s poor economic performance in recent years</a>, and <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/07/19/brexit-was-wrong-say-57-of-british-voters">57 per cent of the British public now want to rejoin</a> the EU. </p>
<p>In the case of both Catalonia and Brexit, it hasn’t just been regional economies that have suffered. The movements also negatively <a href="https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/01/26/spains-economy-is-recovering-from-the-pandemic-but-problems-persist">affected Spain</a> <a href="https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/08/31/europes-economy-looks-to-be-heading-for-trouble">and the EU</a> more broadly. </p>
<p>Likewise, even just a referendum on Albertan independence could affect both the Alberta and Canadian economies.</p>
<h2>‘No plan’</h2>
<p>Former European Council President Donald Tusk famously asked “<a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/__trashed-21/">what that special place in hell looks like for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely.</a>” </p>
<p>Before ramping up calls for independence, Alberta must rigorously analyze the real costs and time frames <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/pmj.21409">of such a momentous undertaking</a>. </p>
<p>An independent Alberta would face numerous challenges, including its landlocked geographical position and heavy reliance on the volatile oil and gas market, which is <a href="https://fortune.com/2023/10/24/global-oil-demand-peak-2030-iea-predicts-first-time/">expected to peak by 2030</a> before consumption begins to drop significantly. </p>
<p>Additional challenges include restructuring trade relationships, establishing an independent financial system and addressing potential investor dissent. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-spectre-of-alberta-separatism-means-for-canada-186897">What the spectre of Alberta separatism means for Canada</a>
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<p>Such a move could also deepen <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008423921000792">urban-rural divisions</a>, raising questions about the fate of urban voters who prefer to remain in Canada and further complicating issues related to citizens’ rights, mobility and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/alberta-sovereignty-act-saskatchewan-first-1.6677493">Indigenous opposition</a>. </p>
<p>Catalonia and post-Brexit U.K. illustrate the dangers of radicalization, separatism and divisive rhetoric. </p>
<p>Both the Alberta and federal governments must act to address western alienation and prevent a catastrophic scenario. That requires not just policy adjustments but a commitment to constructive dialogue and inclusive efforts to resolve these issues.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carlos Freire-Gibb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Catalonia and post-Brexit U.K. illustrate the dangers of separatism and divisive rhetoric. Both Alberta and Ottawa must act to address western alienation and prevent a catastrophic scenario.Carlos Freire-Gibb, Assistant Professor, School of Business, MacEwan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2201712024-01-03T17:41:29Z2024-01-03T17:41:29ZUK urged to get ready for disaster with new national crises plan – but our research reveals the dark side of prepping<p>What would you do if everyday life was suddenly turned upside down? Thanks to recent <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20231122-leave-the-world-behind-review-julia-roberts-stars-in-a-timely-and-chilling-thriller">Hollywood blockbusters</a>, the increasing popularity of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0038038521997763">everyday survivalism</a> and a climate of volatile, uncertain times (war, weather, accelerating technology), visions of the apocalypse seem to be having a moment.</p>
<p>Preppers – those who store food, water and supplies to survive impending disaster – have a bit of an image problem. Ridiculed for their delusional end-of-the world outlook, they are caricatured as “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gwao.13086">tin foil hat-wearing loons</a>”. But is their approach to self-sufficiency so extreme? Recently, we’ve seen <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/rolling-blackouts-energy-crisis-life-death-disability-b2272741.html">energy companies</a> warn about blackouts, urging people to plan for when the lights go out.</p>
<p>In this context, looming (and actual) threats from climate disruption, extreme weather, global pandemics, cyberattacks and AI have led the UK government to launch its ambitious <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-uk-government-resilience-framework">resilience framework</a>.</p>
<p>This framework is based on three core principles: a shared understanding of risk, a greater emphasis on preparation and prevention, and establishing resilience as a “whole of society” endeavour. Everyone is encouraged to be prepared.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/living-with-bunker-builders-doomsday-prepping-in-the-age-of-coronavirus-136635">Living with bunker builders: doomsday prepping in the age of coronavirus</a>
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<p>In the new guidance, households are urged to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/dec/05/britons-should-stock-up-on-torches-and-candles-in-case-of-power-cuts-says-oliver-dowden">stockpile items</a> such as radios and candles, and have ample food in case disaster strikes. But this blanket whole of society call to preparedness rings hollow for many people who feel burned by past <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/14/we-have-a-brexit-shelf-readers-prepping-for-the-no-deal-scenario">vague government directives</a>.</p>
<p>In the run up to Britain’s exit from the EU, for example, fears arose surrounding the collapse of supply chains. The ongoing availability of everyday consumer goods was questioned. Despite officials dismissing stockpiling as <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55293595">unnecessary</a>, the fact is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/14/we-have-a-brexit-shelf-readers-prepping-for-the-no-deal-scenario">one-in-five Britons began prepping</a>.</p>
<p>Many consumers secretly stashed essential items – tinned food, toilet paper, batteries – driven by stigma surrounding “tin foil hat” preppers (more usually associated with <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7151311/">bunker-culture</a>, calamity and doomsday scenarios). However, the government has seemingly reversed its stance, and is now sounding the alarm about imminent crises, and – more importantly – how we are all individually responsible for being prepared.</p>
<p>As a group of academics researching shifts in prepping, covering Brexit, COVID-19, and now the cost of living crisis, our collective work explores how consumers practise everyday resilience and preparedness. </p>
<h2>Women, responsibility and division</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/14/i-dont-trust-the-government-to-look-after-me-or-my-dog-meet-the-brexit-stockpilers">Newspaper articles</a> and our own <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0038038521997763">research</a> on UK Brexit preppers suggest that women disproportionately bear the weight of home-based preparedness.</p>
<p>Domestic and emotional issues fall squarely on mothers who are tasked with keeping households running, no matter the circumstances. Whether ensuring everyone eats during shortages or soothing worries when the lights go out, women carry an outsized caretaking burden pivotal to family survival. All while navigating their own stresses and anxieties.</p>
<p>Recommendations around resilience underestimate the invisible and emotional labour needed to implement contingency planning, scanning the horizon for the next crisis. Rather than empowering households, the push toward self-sufficient readiness fuels deeper anxiety around loved ones’ safety. And if disaster strikes, support beyond immediate family remains essential.</p>
<p>Despite the resilience framework promoting a whole of society approach, preparedness inevitably develops into a scenario of haves and have-nots (meaning, those with the spare cash, space and time to prepare, and those who do not). This lays the foundations for inequality, resentment and the erosion of communal ties.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gwao.13086">research</a> on Brexit-prepping mothers highlights the stigma that they directed towards the unprepared (who they vilified as lazy and feckless for failing to shield children from risk). What resulted was families taking individual action to preserve their own resilience, which we believe has two implications for the resilience framework.</p>
<p>First, focus on individual resilience risks fuelling an “everyone for themselves” mentality. The prepared will put their own families’ needs above others. In our research with Brexit preppers, envisaged disruption led mothers to anticipate difficult decisions surrounding who they would and would not offer help should disaster strike.</p>
<p>In our research study ordinary, upstanding community members (such as teachers and parish councillors) imagined allowing children of the unprepared to go hungry, or considered exploiting others’ unpreparedness on the black market (selling surplus food and supplies at extortionate prices).</p>
<p>Pushed to the edge, they fortified their homes and armed themselves to fend off potential looters who lacked the foresight to prep. Anna, for example, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gwao.13086">discussed using her archery skills</a> to fend off possible looters: “I’m actually an archer, so I have a bow and arrow in the garage. And I’m a bloody good shot, I’m not kidding. I’d need to protect the family.”</p>
<p>Second, the ability to be “prepared” risks becoming tightly bound up with dominant norms of privilege and “good”, middle-class motherhood. These are the mothers mostly likely to possess the wealth, time, skills and physical space to prep.</p>
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<h2>Those left out</h2>
<p>Conversely, the less privileged, such as those experiencing housing issues and precarious employment, who often live hand to mouth, will be less able to prepare. Their survival is likely focused on the everyday, rather than planning for a possible eventuality. Inevitably, they will need wider support from the community, which the resilience framework, given its individualised approach to risk, does not fully consider.</p>
<p>While secrecy around prepping aims to safeguard accumulated assets from prospective thieves, it also isolates at-risk groups who lack equal means to stockpile for themselves. What duty do neighbours have to share with others if catastrophe (or even a temporary glitch) occurs? The line between rational self interest and morality blurs when survival instincts kick in, yet interconnected resilience may suffer when social cohesion frays beyond repair.</p>
<p>The government may encourage readiness across the whole of society, but this rings hollow if resilience is pursued through the stigma and separation of haves versus have-nots. Promoting preparedness without addressing inequalities, communal ties, emotional resilience and the gendered nature of caretaking labour undermines social cohesion critical for weathering crises.</p>
<p>Real security arises not from isolated stockpiles and individual action, but the establishment of more community-wide plans for preparedness in the event of disaster.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220171/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Prepping is fast becoming mainstream, but new government advice fails to address inequality, and could cause division between the haves and have-nots.Ben Kerrane, Professor of Marketing, School of Busines, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityDavid Rowe, Lecturer in Marketing, University of YorkKaty Kerrane, Lecturer in Marketing, University of LiverpoolShona Bettany, Professor of Marketing, School of Business, Education and Law, University of HuddersfieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2176032023-11-14T13:41:19Z2023-11-14T13:41:19ZRishi Sunak’s decision to bring back David Cameron has distracted us all for now, but the long-term strategy is flawed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559286/original/file-20231114-17-9oaq62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=816%2C1443%2C4614%2C2781&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/number10gov/53328934922/">Number 10/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Former prime minister David Cameron’s return as foreign secretary in Rishi Sunak’s government was surprising, to say the least. Only four former prime ministers have gone on to serve again in government, and none since Alec Douglas-Home returned as foreign secretary under Edward Heath in 1970.</p>
<p>Sunak surely has more in mind than some shocked headlines, but working out the strategic thinking behind the move is perplexing for two reasons. First because Cameron is not a particularly popular politician. Second because, even setting that aside, he is the wrong kind of person to bring back to serve the Conservative strategy that has the best chance of working at the next general election. </p>
<p>It is difficult to pin down how the public felt about Cameron just prior to his resignation in 2016, because there was such a febrile atmosphere at the time. The Brexit referendum, in which Cameron was one of the faces of the Remain campaign, coloured everything. </p>
<p>However, we know that a few months before the referendum he had worse favourability ratings than Jeremy Corbyn, Labour leader of the time <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/15108-camerons-ratings-now-lower-corbyns">(–24 to –22 net favourability).</a> </p>
<p>Expert surveys also concluded at the time that Cameron was <a href="https://theconversation.com/academics-rate-david-cameron-among-worst-post-war-prime-ministers-66780">among the worst post-war prime ministers</a>, below even the crisis-stricken Gordon Brown and Heath. More to the point, asked about his return as foreign secretary, <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2023/11/13/8bdf8/1">just 24% of the public believe it was a good decision</a>. </p>
<p>Surely a lot of this is down to Brexit. Half the country opposed it and Cameron was the prime minister who made it (and the years of post-Brexit tumult) happen. </p>
<p>It was Cameron who called the referendum in the first place and Cameron who failed to convince voters to back Remain. Boris Johnson (another <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/06/boris-johnson-likens-himself-to-roman-cincinnatus-who-returned-as-dictator">Cincinnatus-in-waiting</a>) would face similar obstacles if he were to return, but at least he would go down better with many Leave supporters.</p>
<p>Looking at other aspects of Cameron’s legacy, the picture is hardly any rosier. The Cameron years were not boom times. They were an “age of austerity” marked by spending cuts, stagnant wages, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/national-institute-economic-review/article/is-the-uk-productivity-slowdown-unprecedented/287949348D9BBA0223B3EA7E532C4B22">flatlining productivity</a> and an economy that barely grew. </p>
<p>The merits of fiscal retrenchment in the wake of a financial crisis can be debated. But even judged on its own terms – the goal of eliminating the deficit within a single parliament – the Cameron government’s <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/george-osborne-deficit-reduction-target-budget-austerity-chancellor-coalition-a8234341.html">austerity package failed</a>. </p>
<p>The centrepiece for Cameron’s vision for the country, his <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1099-0860.2010.00351.x?casa_token=-PgxgHLd_XsAAAAA%3A3XyHGen26nqetX6BV5HYARgf383Q5Bxe0l-QBOEbtRYnOZqHt48XneJklnPXnNJx6jaYmEZ4DXAyQso">“big society” policy</a>, has barely left a trace. This was meant to fix “broken Britain”, but what legacy is there to claim when with around <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/yes-five-million-are-on-out-of-work-benefits-heres-the-proof/#:%7E:text=The%20five%20million%20figure%20%27seems,out%2Dof%2Dwork%20benefits">5 million people on out-of-work benefits</a> and with COVID having exposed the dire state of so many of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-austerity-made-the-uk-more-vulnerable-to-covid-208240">Britain’s public services</a>? </p>
<h2>Choosing the blue wall over the red wall?</h2>
<p>When considered in relation to what is presumably still the Conservative strategy going in to the next general election, it makes just as little sense. </p>
<p>The now-ousted Suella Braverman was a prominent Conservative culture warrior but Sunak has hardly shied away from campaigning along these lines himself. His clear intention to harness resentment over climate change policies as an electoral strategy is a case in point. </p>
<p>However, Cameron’s appointment sends mixed messages in this regard because, as PM, Cameron had a very prominent green agenda and embraced the commitment to reduce the UK’s emissions by 80% (relative to 1990 levels) by 2050. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/david-cameron-returns-how-can-a-prime-minister-make-someone-who-isnt-an-mp-foreign-secretary-and-what-happens-now-217601">David Cameron returns: how can a prime minister make someone who isn't an MP foreign secretary? And what happens now?</a>
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<p>Sunak needs to appeal to working-class voters in red wall seats in the north of England – the constituents won over by Boris Johnson in 2019. But Cameron is a classic home counties Tory, precisely the kind of politician deemed out of touch in the Brexit years. </p>
<p>Perceptions of his elitism were only reinforced by revelations that he <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/da2a2686-1efa-4fd4-bee4-79cc9d9a89a2">personally texted</a> Sunak when he was chancellor to lobby for the finance company Greensill Capital to gain access to a Bank of England COVID loan scheme. </p>
<p>Cameron’s appointment also jars with Sunak’s recent Conservative conference speech, in which he attempted to distance himself from a failed <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya7INY7R9rU">“30-year political status quo”</a> and criticised a system characterised by vested interests. This presumably encompasses his new foreign secretary’s time as prime minister.</p>
<p>Which begs the question: what is in this for Sunak? Cameron will bring considerable experience to his new role in government, and he is a capable media performer. Both these traits are in high demand after the attrition in cabinet in recent years, but they are hardly game-changers. </p>
<p>His appointment may also help shore up Conservative support in a handful of marginals in southern England. But at what cost in other parts of the country? </p>
<p>Perhaps the biggest single benefit of the move is that it instantly shifted the focus away from Braverman and limited the amount of mischief she could make in the aftermath of her departure, but even that does very little to help Sunak beyond the very short term. </p>
<p>It’s doubtful that pulling any rabbit out of the hat could change the likelihood of a big Conservative loss at the next general election, but if there is one, this almost certainly isn’t it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217603/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Byrne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sunak recently attacked ‘30 years of the status quo’ and promptly appointed a man who governed for six of those years to his top team.Christopher Byrne, Assistant Professor in British Politics, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2138902023-11-09T19:10:42Z2023-11-09T19:10:42ZFriday essay: if the world’s systems are ‘already cracking’ due to climate change, is there a post-doom silver lining?<blockquote>
<p>Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each floor, he kept saying to reassure himself: So far so good … so far so good … so far so good …</p>
</blockquote>
<p>― <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKwcXt3JIaU">La Haine</a>, 1995</p>
<p>If it felt to you like things started going off the rails around the year 2016, you’re not alone. Symbolically, the double blow of Britain voting for Brexit, <em>then</em> the United States voting for Donald Trump, seemed like the “end” of something. (The <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/gold-plated-populism-trump-and-end-of-liberal-order/">postwar liberal consensus</a>? The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/magazine/the-end-of-the-anglo-american-order.html">Anglo-American order</a>?) </p>
<p>For some – myself included – it also felt like the stirrings of a more explicitly dystopian moment. If you count yourself in this category, buckle up: Jem Bendell, former professor in sustainability leadership at the UK’s University of Cumbria, and his research team are here with more bad news. </p>
<p>According to Bendell’s new book <a href="https://schumacherinstitute.org.uk/product/jem-bendell-book/">Breaking Together: A Freedom-Loving Response to Collapse</a>, “the quality of life in most countries and regions of the world […] peaked around 2016 and [then] began to slowly decline”. There is no sound reason to expect a halt to this deterioration, Bendell argues. </p>
<p>Rather, declining <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/09/1126121">Human Development Index</a> statistics are one of many signals societal collapse due to climate change is not only possible, or even imminent – but already happening, right now. </p>
<p>But what if collapse is an ongoing and slow(ish) process, rather than a one-off mega-disaster? And what if the cracks appearing in the “cultural cement” of modern society represent not only a crisis, but also an opportunity to radically rethink how humans interact – with each other, and with the natural world?</p>
<p>Breaking Together encourages us to think about collapse in ways that are profound, possibility-expanding and startlingly original. Bendell’s “post-doom” perspective has the potential to change individual lives, upend organisational strategies and give birth to whole new social movements.</p>
<p>Bendell advocates for an ideal of “<a href="https://braveneweurope.com/jem-bendell-what-is-ecolibertarianism-its-the-freedom-loving-environmentalism-we-need">ecofreedom</a>”. This moves beyond obvious ideas, such as reconnecting with nature, to encompass supporting youth climate activism and decolonial, resource-preserving movements in the Global South. </p>
<p>The post-doom approach also calls for embracing a “positive disintegration” of self and values, to refocus one’s mind, and entire existence, on things that really matter.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-live-in-a-time-of-late-capitalism-but-what-does-that-mean-and-whats-so-late-about-it-191422">We live in a time of 'late capitalism'. But what does that mean? And what's so late about it?</a>
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<h2>Deep adaptation</h2>
<p>Bendell is best known for his 2018 paper <a href="https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/4166/">Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy</a>. He submitted it to the <a href="https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/sampj">Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal</a> for peer review; the reviewers requested major changes. </p>
<p>Instead, Bendell published the paper himself, via the University of Cumbria’s <a href="https://www.cumbria.ac.uk/research/centres/iflas/">Initiative for Leadership and Sustainability</a>. Deep Adaptation is a brick hurled through the window of “corporate sustainability”, questioning its very viability as a field of scholarship. The first sentence of the abstract reads: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The purpose of this conceptual paper is to provide readers with an opportunity to reassess their work and life in the face of an inevitable near-term social collapse due to climate change.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Needless to say, this got people’s attention. The breaking-the-frame gesture of a supposedly sober academic paper containing bold, sometimes alarming claims resonated widely. Particularly this one:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>when I say starvation, destruction, migration, disease and war, I mean in your own life. With the power down, soon you wouldn’t have water coming out of your tap. You will depend on your neighbours for food and some warmth. You will become malnourished. You won’t know whether to stay or go. You will fear being violently killed before starving to death.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Deep Adaptation went viral. By 2019, it had been downloaded <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/8xwygg/the-collapse-of-civilization-may-have-already-begun">more than 600,000 times</a>. The argument’s appeal is based, first, on Bendell’s courage to draw meaningful, personally relevant conclusions from all the terrifying climate and ecological data that has been floating around unsynthesised for years. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557984/original/file-20231107-17-suwinh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557984/original/file-20231107-17-suwinh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557984/original/file-20231107-17-suwinh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557984/original/file-20231107-17-suwinh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557984/original/file-20231107-17-suwinh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557984/original/file-20231107-17-suwinh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1206&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557984/original/file-20231107-17-suwinh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1206&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557984/original/file-20231107-17-suwinh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1206&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>This is combined with a sense one might have stumbled upon “<a href="https://jembendell.com/2018/07/26/the-study-on-collapse-they-thought-you-should-not-read-yet/">the paper</a> they don’t want you to read”. A whiff of contraband, the tang of illicit knowledge – which has, of course, become ever more appealing in these heady, post-truth days.</p>
<p>Bendell’s “Deep Adaptation” argument influenced the founding members of <a href="https://rebellion.global/">Extinction Rebellion</a>, who sought to develop an environmental activism commensurate with the scale of threat humans face. </p>
<p>It also led to the formation of an international online <a href="https://www.deepadaptation.info/">Deep Adaptation Forum</a>, which has allowed tens of thousands of people to begin processing their fear and grief about future societal and ecological breakdown. </p>
<p>Bendell’s work has also sparked fierce criticism: that he has <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/faulty-science-doomism-and-flawed-conclusions-deep-adaptation/">got the science wrong</a>. Or that, even if the science is okay, the implications of Deep Adaptation are counter to a politics of <a href="https://theecologist.org/2022/feb/01/deep-adaptation-or-climate-justice">climate justice</a>. </p>
<p>(It’s also worth noting that some critics of Deep Adaptation commit the classic fallacy of “<a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-19962-004">shooting the messenger</a>”, blaming Bendell for systemic problems and/or <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-51857722">emotional responses</a> that are not of his making.)</p>
<h2>‘It’s already far worse’</h2>
<p>Now, five years after the birth of the Deep Adaptation movement, Bendell is back with another nasty surprise:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>as the research [for Breaking Together] progressed, I discovered the data was indicating things were far worse than I had previously assessed. Indeed, they were already far worse in the years before 2018 than I had known. I had been wrong to conclude that societal collapse is inevitable, because it had already begun when I was reaching that conclusion.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Chapter by chapter, the first half of the 500-page book presents an interdisciplinary laundry list of ruin: imminent or ongoing economic collapse, monetary collapse, energy collapse, biosphere collapse, climate collapse, food collapse, societal collapse. </p>
<p>Depending on your background, some of this material might be (depressingly) familiar reading. For example, anyone who’s across the Stockholm Resilience Centre’s analysis that humanity has already <a href="https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2023-09-13-all-planetary-boundaries-mapped-out-for-the-first-time-six-of-nine-crossed.html">breached six out of nine of the earth’s “planetary boundaries”</a>, or who has read Elizabeth Kolbert’s <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250062185/thesixthextinction">The Sixth Extinction</a> (2014), won’t need convincing that ecological collapse is well underway.</p>
<h2>Hedge-fund gossip</h2>
<p>On the other hand, for readers who are unfamiliar with the finer points of economics or finance – such as myself – there are some huge claims it’s hard to know what to do with. Apparently, the world’s current monetary systems “are not only hastening the collapse of both natural and human systems, but are known to be on the verge of collapse by some senior officials”.</p>
<p>His proof? “Many private bankers I have spoken to believe that the current monetary systems will not last,” while “none of them […] considered the system to be ethically legitimate or sustainable”. This leads to an eye-popping suggestion:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the monetary system would not likely collapse in a random fashion but [would] be triggered when a coalition of corporate and banking interests, both public and private, determine that they are ready to profit from that transformation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I’m willing to be convinced on this point – I have very little faith in the motives of investment bankers or bond traders – but I need more than the cocktail-party gossip of “for the last 15 years, in social occasions, I have occasionally chatted with people who work in hedge funds and asked about their views on their work and the future of the financial system”. A lot more.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fallen-crypto-king-sam-bankman-fried-was-perfectly-positioned-to-make-a-religion-of-himself-213893">Fallen crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried was 'perfectly positioned to make a religion of himself'</a>
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<h2>Systems under stress</h2>
<p>But even while Bendell and co. can get a bit carried away with their sub-arguments in Breaking Together, its overall thrust is clear and compelling. Many of the world’s natural and human-made systems, which combine to make up “industrial consumer society”, are under severe stress, or are already cracking. </p>
<p>These systems are interdependent, complex, precarious and nonlinear – which means change can occur not just gradually and predictably, but also abruptly, drastically. A sudden breakdown in one part of the overarching structure of global capitalism can – and does – trigger disruptions in other areas.</p>
<p>For example, if <a href="https://theconversation.com/extreme-weather-is-landing-more-australians-in-hospital-and-heat-is-the-biggest-culprit-216440">extreme weather</a> led to widespread crop failures across multiple wheat-growing regions – a possibility known as “a multi-breadbasket failure” – this would also trigger economic and political chaos. This, in turn, would make it much more difficult for the entire world to immediately transition away from fossil fuels and towards <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-original-and-still-the-best-why-its-time-to-renew-australias-renewable-energy-policy-213879">renewable energy</a>, to avoid calamitous climate change. </p>
<p>And that’s without getting into the question of whether we have enough <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3mavb/we-dont-mine-enough-rare-earth-metals-to-replace-fossil-fuels-with-renewable-energy">rare earth metals</a> to make such a miraculous transition. (See Chapter 3, “Energy Collapse” for the short answer – we don’t.)</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in recent years we’ve already seen how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has increased Europe’s <a href="https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/impact-war-ukraine-energy-prices-consequences-firms-financial-performance">energy prices</a>, as well as putting stress on the world’s <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/17/russia-ukraine-grain-deal-what-does-it-mean-for-global-food-prices.html">grain supplies</a>, which forces food prices up – which, when framed as a “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2023/apr/04/theres-nothing-natural-about-australias-cost-of-living-crisis-its-time-we-had-systemic-change">cost of living crisis”</a>, can justify regressive political responses. </p>
<p>It all points towards an understanding of our current situation as one in which widespread collapse is not a spectre looming on the horizon, but occurring all around us, in the present tense – if only we had eyes to see it.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/doomsday-bunkers-mars-and-the-mindset-the-tech-bros-trying-to-outsmart-the-end-of-the-world-188661">Doomsday bunkers, Mars and 'The Mindset': the tech bros trying to outsmart the end of the world</a>
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<h2>Boiling frog, creeping collapse</h2>
<p>What would it have felt like to live through the final years of the collapsing Roman Empire? Or the <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-conflict-collapse-how-drought-destabilised-the-last-major-precolonial-mayan-city-187165">last decades of the Mayan civilisation</a>? Would it have felt like collapse to a child – or to an old person? Would what we now understand as history have been legible at the time to an individual, any individual, struggling through their busy unique, vanishingly short lives?</p>
<p>Probably not, I’d suggest. And the experts agree. Jared Diamond, in his magisterial <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/collapse-9780241958681">Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive</a> (2005), mentions the concept of “creeping normalcy”, which refers to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>slow trends concealed within noisy fluctuations. If the economy, schools, traffic congestion, or anything else is deteriorating only slowly, it’s difficult to recognize that each successive year is on average slightly worse than the year before, so one’s baseline standard for what constitutes “normalcy” shifts gradually and imperceptibly.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This also gets called “<a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fee.1794">shifting baseline syndrome</a>”, or the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2006/09/the-boiled-frog-myth-stop-the-lying-now/7446/">frog-in-a-pot</a> dilemma (which isn’t actually a scientific thing, but nonetheless remains an instructive parable). </p>
<p>Our individual ability to perceive medium-term change is further hindered by the dramatic changes that occur all the time in our personal lives. If you lose your job, or get a better-paying job in a new city, or are involved in a serious accident and become disabled, or find God, or stop drinking, or become a parent, or lose a parent, these events all function as “noisy fluctuations”. </p>
<p>Changes in your personal circumstances overshadow your understanding of the outside world, with its subtle, slow-moving phenomena (migratory bird populations, sea-level rise). The most obvious example of this is how every single one of us gets old, becomes frail and sometimes enfeebled, and finally dies. </p>
<p>This “personal collapse” occurs over a matter of decades. As it does, old age has “a strong negative effect on <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1017/s0022381607080127">information processing</a>”. In short: humans aren’t well placed to understand societal change occurring on decades-long timescales.</p>
<p>With this in mind, and borrowing from Diamond, Bendell uses the phrase “creeping collapse” to describe what is arguably happening right now. Bendell clarifies “the study of both ancient and recent history suggests that the collapse of a society is typically <em>a process</em>, not <em>an event</em>” (italics mine). </p>
<p>This is the first big head-shift for us all to make: when societal collapse happens, it won’t be quick and dramatic and simple like an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMWkuGTz_TQ">apocalyptic disaster movie</a> (although spectacular one-off disasters and wars will continue to occur). Instead, Bendell cites sustainability scholars Cathy Rubiños and John M Anderies’ 2020 <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7b9c">definition of collapse</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>such a process is worthy of that term if “key actors, system components and interactions” disappear in “less than one generation”, where there are “substantial losses of social-ecological” assets that sustained the system, with consequences “persisting longer than a single generation”.</p>
</blockquote>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zBruOCKIVMc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Societal collapse won’t be quick and dramatic like an apocalyptic disaster movie.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Bendell contends “most existing trends will more-or-less continue without stopping until the method of human organising no longer resembles what we now call industrial consumer societies”, and that “the current creeping collapse of modern societies will be completed within a generation” – by around 2045 or 2050.</p>
<p>Is he right? Only time will tell. Breaking Together is “unfalsifiable” in that sense: we’ll have to wait for 20 or 30 years to know for sure. Meanwhile, even if contemporary society is still somehow staggering along pretty much unchanged a decade from now, a true believer in Bendell’s society’s-already-collapsing thesis could simply say, “That’s because the breakdown only <em>properly</em> began a couple of years ago; just wait another 20 years, you’ll see.” </p>
<p>In the intervening years and decades, we might all adjust surprisingly quickly to a series of “creeping normals” – just as we’ve become acclimatised to the ubiquity of the World Wide Web, the proliferation of smartphones, the rise of AI, and the increasingly common occurrence of droughts, floods, heatwaves and deadly forest fires.</p>
<h2>A radical rethink of ‘the entire Western project’</h2>
<p>If you haven’t already spent much time pondering how bad things might get, Breaking Together will probably be a brutal read. But for readers familiar with Diamond’s Collapse, or with other books from the new field dubbed “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/11/humans-werent-always-here-we-could-disappear-meet-the-collapsologists">collapsology</a>”, this isn’t the most original, or interesting, part of Bendell’s new book. (I particularly recommend Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens’ excellent 2020 book <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-au/How+Everything+Can+Collapse%3A+A+Manual+for+our+Times-p-9781509541393">How Everything Can Collapse: A Manual for our Times</a>.) </p>
<p>The second half of Breaking Together tackles the question of what to do with the difficult knowledge of “collapse awareness”. Bendell originally trained as a sociologist, so it makes sense that his insights here are particularly thought-provoking. </p>
<p>Bendell identifies a disturbing trend of “panic-driven authoritarian” in contemporary politics, with governments and elites forcing the public to change their behaviour for their own good. He rejects this vision of top-down change as symptomatic of deeper problems within modernity. </p>
<p>In fact, he suggests:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>public, private and civic institutions of incumbent power, and their officers and apologists, are already making matters worse in the early phases of unfolding societal collapse.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I would agree with this general point, even if the example Bendell chooses – government responses to COVID-19, such as lockdowns and vaccine mandates – isn’t convincing.</p>
<p>Bendell advocates instead for an ideal of “ecofreedom”, defined as “that individual and collective state of being free and enabled to care for each other and the environment, rather than coerced or manipulated towards behaviours that damage it”. </p>
<p>In the mode of philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who believed in the essential <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr_vl62JblQ">innocence</a> and goodness of humans before they’re corrupted by society, Bendell argues “human nature” isn’t to blame for the climate crisis. Instead, the problem is capitalism, as well as deeper hierarchical tendencies within societies that use forms of money – which Bendell describes, unnecessarily, as “the money-power”. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-philosophy-of-jean-jacques-rousseau-is-profoundly-contemporary-201179">Explainer: the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau is profoundly contemporary</a>
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<p>This informs his vision of “ecolibertarianism” – which is not to be confused with far-right libertarianism. (Bendell is really talking about something akin to <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-anarchism-all-about-50373">anarchism</a> or eco-socialism, but avoids both terms because of the stigma attached to them.) </p>
<p>Ecolibertarians believe “modern societies are destroying their own foundations because we have been manipulated to experience life as unsafe and competitive[,] and behave accordingly”. Unlike <a href="https://theconversation.com/grandiose-visions-and-arrested-development-a-new-biography-considers-the-contradictory-life-of-elon-musk-214268">Silicon Valley-style libertarians</a>, ecolibertarians see “the influence and intrusion of corporations [… and] capitalism more generally” as one of the factors responsible for the destruction of our ecosystem.</p>
<p>Breaking Together is not a big book of “solutions”, let alone “policy solutions”, to our predicament. It is both vaguer and more radical than that. Bendell is basically calling for us to rethink the entire Western project of modernity and <a href="https://theconversation.com/criticism-of-western-civilisation-isnt-new-it-was-part-of-the-enlightenment-104567">the Enlightenment</a>, beginning with a spiritual “rebooting”. </p>
<p>In this context, he sees little value in “asking for a specific fix for a specific difficulty that is neither solvable nor happening in isolation from other difficulties”. Such thinking amounts to tinkering with a fundamentally broken machine. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557983/original/file-20231107-29-20s4nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557983/original/file-20231107-29-20s4nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557983/original/file-20231107-29-20s4nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557983/original/file-20231107-29-20s4nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557983/original/file-20231107-29-20s4nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557983/original/file-20231107-29-20s4nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557983/original/file-20231107-29-20s4nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557983/original/file-20231107-29-20s4nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He doesn’t discuss large-scale infrastructure projects such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-can-rewild-swathes-of-australia-by-focusing-on-what-makes-it-unique-111749">rewilding</a> cities (for a whimsical take on that, see Steve Mushin’s recent illustrated book <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Steve-Mushin-Ultrawild-9781760292812/">Ultrawild</a>). Some readers might find this frustrating, but I think it’s inspiring – it signals the ambition of Bendell’s vision, his attempt to look beyond quick fixes and <a href="https://theconversation.com/greenwashing-can-you-trust-that-label-2116">greenwashing</a>, to discover something genuinely novel.</p>
<p>Bendell believes Western activists should “shift [their] focus to efforts at regenerating nature, an <a href="https://www.soilassociation.org/causes-campaigns/a-ten-year-transition-to-agroecology/what-is-agroecology/#:%7E:text=Agroecology%20is%20sustainable%20farming%20that,concepts%20and%20principals%20in%20farming.">agroecological</a> revolution in farming, shortening supply chains, major economic redistribution and monetary reform”. </p>
<p>He expresses admiration for community-based micro-finance schemes and small-scale farming projects. He has himself moved from the UK to Bali, to establish a “<a href="https://jembendell.com/2023/08/11/regenerative-farming-its-time/">collapse-ready</a>” organic farm north of Ubud. He is also starting to think about decolonial approaches to the climate crisis. </p>
<p>In this context, Bendell suggests Western activists need to support poor people in <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-global-south-is-on-the-rise-but-what-exactly-is-the-global-south-207959">the Global South</a> to make their own choices – including radical ones – about what they want their futures to look like. </p>
<p>This might include “a rebirth of anti-imperialism and protectionism across the Majority World, leading to curbs on [resource] exports to those ‘richer’ regions”. Bendell is more clear-eyed than most about the fact that even if middle-class Western climate activists might be willing <em>in principle</em> to sacrifice their own privileged way of life for the greater good of the planet, in practice this hasn’t happened in the past 50 years. Real change, if it’s going to come, will come from elsewhere.</p>
<p>The final piece of the puzzle is inner transformation. In Breaking Together, Bendell offers some brief suggestions of spiritual and wellness practices that have been useful for him: meditation; mindfulness; “deep relating” (or, focused conversations); “hikes in nature […] fasting […] ecstatic dance”. Learning a musical instrument, getting into improvisational theatre. </p>
<p>This is all well and good. More generally, it is refreshing to see self-help discourses appear side-by-side with serious discussions of monetary policy and climate tipping points. But the self-actualisation aspect is also a bit … basic. The key point, really, is we all have to work this stuff out for ourselves. Elsewhere in the book, Bendell suggests:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Personally, I find natural scientists much less interesting and wise on metaphysical matters than the teachers of the great wisdom traditions. Perhaps I just prefer my spirituality from people with less of an interest in statistics.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I agree. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-in-an-age-of-catastrophe-is-there-still-a-place-for-utopian-dreams-or-might-our-shared-vulnerability-be-the-key-199890">Friday essay: in an age of catastrophe is there still a place for utopian dreams? Or might our shared vulnerability be the key?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Paradigm-scuttling</h2>
<p>Breaking Together: A Freedom-Loving Response to Collapse is an important, uneven, paradigm-scuttling book. It deserves a wide readership, though I fear it might be too endnote-heavy for a general audience. </p>
<p>This book is worth reading even – especially? – if you don’t believe climate change will lead to a widespread breakdown of social structures. I would also suggest the book is worth persevering with even if you’re not convinced by every link in its chains of logic. </p>
<p>As Jonah E. Bromwich wrote for the New York Times in 2020, “even if the [Deep Adaptation] math doesn’t add up, does that make the dark conclusion <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/26/style/climate-change-deep-adaptation.html">any less meaningful</a>?” Or, put slightly more constructively: if there’s a non-zero probability of societal collapse, isn’t that something for us all to take very, very seriously? Isn’t that prospect worth devoting a significant amount of time and mental energy to? </p>
<p>Obviously, it’s worth doing everything in our power to prevent or slow aspects of this collapse. But it’s just as important to face up to the possibility the green energy transition <a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-11-22/the-renewable-energy-transition-is-failing/">might fail</a>. That politicians around the world might not get their collective shit together in time. And that Earth’s climate will continue to spiral out of control, bringing ever-new <a href="https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5137/">record-breaking temperatures</a>, wave after wave of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/magazine/natural-disaster-rebuild.html">“unprecedented” disasters</a> and worse. </p>
<p>In such a world – which is, I repeat, <em>the world we already live in</em> – Bendell’s writing on “the Doomster way” is only going to become important. Breaking Together encourages people to take stock of their lives and actively make the most of what good time we have left. </p>
<p>To “dig garden beds, not bunkers”. And to, as Bendell quotes the words of the yogi Ram Dass, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym4Rpd72tq8">keep our hearts open in hell</a>” – even as things deteriorate around us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213890/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom volunteered for Extinction Rebellion Aotearoa in 2021.</span></em></p>Jem Bendell encourages us to think about societal collapse in ways that are ‘profound and startlingly original’, with the potential to birth whole new social movements, says Tom Doig.Tom Doig, Lecturer in Creative Writing, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2149202023-10-09T12:07:51Z2023-10-09T12:07:51ZWhy Labour’s plan to ‘rewrite Brexit’ might not be as politically risky as it sounds<p>Labour leader Keir Starmer has <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/6bdc4e88-c2ed-44ad-aa7d-c70bc358e027">committed</a> to rewriting the UK’s Brexit deal with the European Union when it comes up for review in 2025, if his party is elected to government. He has said he wants a closer trading relationship and better terms than former prime minister Boris Johnson negotiated and has argued this is a necessary step for future national growth. </p>
<p>Labour is certainly not proposing to rejoin the EU, but this nevertheless seems a risky topic for the leader of a party that has so often been on the back foot of Brexit. But is it? Much has changed since the fraught years that followed the 2016 vote to leave the EU – and even since the 2019 election, which was fought and won on a Brexit campaign. </p>
<p>Unlike the years between 2016 and 2019, the Labour leader’s position is now more aligned with that of the public. A majority of people now <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/45152-which-leave-voters-have-turned-against-brexit">believe</a> it was wrong to leave the EU, with just a third saying it was the right decision. </p>
<p>Even among those who voted to leave, just over a quarter now think it was the wrong decision or are no longer sure. A combination of new voters entering the electorate since 2016 and some Leave voters changing their mind has meant that the public voice on the issue is markedly different than it was then and in 2019.</p>
<p>However, this is not the only factor Starmer will have to consider as he shapes his position on the UK’s future relationship with the EU. Another development in recent years is that Brexit is no longer seen as <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/trackers/the-most-important-issues-facing-the-country">an important issue</a> – and it is not even close to being one. </p>
<p>As of October 2, just 16% of people rated leaving the EU as one of the most important issues facing the country. That is far below the economy, crime, immigration, health and the environment. </p>
<p>Belief in its importance is even lower amongst those who voted Leave (9%) – the people most likely to see renegotiating the current terms with Europe as a risk. This has two implications – one good and one bad for Starmer. </p>
<p>The first is that, simply put, people may just not care if he rewrites the Brexit deal. They have more urgent matters on their minds. However, they might equally feel that in reopening the discussions, the Labour leader would be focusing on issues that they have <a href="https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/keir-starmer-labour-brexit-deal-public-opinion">had enough of</a> when the country faces substantial social and economic challenges.</p>
<p>So, there are opportunities and risks for Starmer. Much like when the EU issue became almost <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2016/01/05/how-immigration-became-a-eurosceptic-issue/#:%7E:text=EU%2520immigration%2520takes%2520off%2520with,five%2520years%2520of%2520EU%2520membership.">synonymous with immigration</a>, how much the Brexit issue cuts through to the public, and the effect it has, may depend on which issues it becomes associated with, if any. </p>
<p>There is a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/6bdc4e88-c2ed-44ad-aa7d-c70bc358e027">suggestion</a> from Starmer that he is attempting to link the negotiations with the the economy and cost of living generally (by far the most important issues), as well as a vision for a more hopeful future. This may prove successful since a third of the public, and nearly half of Labour voters, <a href="https://www.ukonward.com/reports/hotting-up/">already think</a> Brexit has had a role to play in the cost of living crisis.</p>
<h2>Minds on other things</h2>
<p>Overall, the issue is not likely to be a live one, drowned out by much more urgent problems. Starmer may see this as a positive, meaning he can negotiate outside of the public eye. Or he may attempt to tie the negotiations, even loosely, to a broader programme to heal the country’s economy and society.</p>
<p>Much could also still change. As of June, <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2023/05/31/5f827/1">44% of people had no idea</a> what Starmer’s position on the EU was, and <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/which-political-party-would-be-the-best-at-handling-brexit">just 19% think</a> Labour is the best party to handle Brexit (tied with “none”, and below “don’t know” at 25%). </p>
<p>Where there is ambiguity, there is possibility for change. Which direction that is likely depends on which issues the negotiation becomes associated with, and how Labour is perceived on those issues.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214920/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Devine receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (UK). </span></em></p>Once upon a time, questioning the terms of Britain’s exit from the EU was effectively taboo. But times have changed and the public might be more on board than before.Daniel Devine, Fellow in Politics, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2134752023-09-20T15:34:27Z2023-09-20T15:34:27ZThe UK re-joining the Horizon research funding scheme benefits Europe too – the data backs it up<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549329/original/file-20230920-29-d80p8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C0%2C6934%2C4637&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/male-scientist-analyzes-studies-research-organic-2237778033">Amorn Suriyan / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UK has <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/britain-rejoins-eus-horizon-science-scheme/">just rejoined</a> the EU’s flagship research funding programmes, Horizon Europe and Copernicus. This is great news for science, the EU and the UK. </p>
<p>The reasons are simple: science progresses through the individual efforts of scholars and through <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048733398000547">international cooperative research</a>. The latter process involves different scientific institutions and organisations working towards common goals on a variety of different projects. </p>
<p>Science has never really been confined to what we define today as national borders. The life path of the astronomer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nicolaus-Copernicus">Nicolaus Copernicus</a>, provides a good example of this.</p>
<p>Copernicus was born in Torun, Poland, in 1473. After studying in Krakow, in his home country, he moved south, studying in the Italian cities of Rome and Padua. He ended up with a doctorate in canon law <a href="https://www.unife.it/en/unife-world/history">from the University of Ferrara</a>, also in Italy. </p>
<p>Afterwards, Copernicus moved back to Poland to further his studies. Here, he developed a model of the universe with the Sun at the centre, replacing the traditional model where the Earth was central. His <a href="https://www.pas.rochester.edu/%7Eblackman/ast104/copernican9.html">“Copernican model”</a> helped kick off the scientific revolution.</p>
<p>When the ability of researchers to work across borders is limited, <a href="https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/frozen-out-of-horizon-europe-swiss-science-feels-the-pinch/4015987.article">science suffers</a>. For this reason, Brexit has damaged the UK in terms of retaining European scholars. Some of the evidence comes from research using data on citations – the number of times a given scientific work has been mentioned in the literature by other researchers. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2022-019.pdf">A study</a> led by Ebru Sanliturk at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany, which I participated in, showed that, in the three years following Brexit, scholars who originated in the EU almost doubled their likelihood of leaving the UK. On the other hand, researchers originally from the UK have become more likely to stay in their home country or move back from the EU to the UK.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="European Commission in Brussels." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549357/original/file-20230920-27-j8xen6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549357/original/file-20230920-27-j8xen6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549357/original/file-20230920-27-j8xen6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549357/original/file-20230920-27-j8xen6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549357/original/file-20230920-27-j8xen6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549357/original/file-20230920-27-j8xen6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549357/original/file-20230920-27-j8xen6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Horizon Europe deal gives UK scientists access to the world’s largest research collaboration programme.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/eu-flags-front-european-commission-brussels-162128453">Symbiot / Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Why is this the case? One of the key EU funding agencies is the <a href="https://erc.europa.eu/homepage">European Research Council (ERC)</a>. It does something unusual: it funds research projects led by a scientist who is then free to change institution after the grant has been awarded. </p>
<p><a href="https://dashboard.tech.ec.europa.eu/qs_digit_dashboard_mt/public/sense/app/afe00964-3272-45c4-b60c-b64ed20d98d1/sheet/61a0bd1d-cd6d-4ac8-8b55-80d8661e44c0/state/analysis">ERC data shows that</a>, since 2007, 98 UK institutions have been awarded 2,397 projects and a total of more than four million euros. Put another way, the UK took 16% of all projects and total ERC funding. </p>
<p>The ERC has large individual grants: <a href="https://erc.europa.eu/apply-grant/starting-grant">between 1.5</a> and <a href="https://erc.europa.eu/apply-grant/advanced-grant">2.5 million euros</a> per project. It has contributed to raising the stakes in European science, and being awarded an ERC grant <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/apr/25/brexit-row-threatens-250m-in-uk-research-funding-from-eu">has become a badge of honour</a> for principal investigators – the scientists who lead research projects. </p>
<p>Moreover, <a href="https://erc.europa.eu/about-erc/erc-glance">12 ERC awardees</a> have received a Nobel Prize. The UK has benefited too, by attracting principal investigators from <a href="https://dashboard.tech.ec.europa.eu/qs_digit_dashboard_mt/public/sense/app/afe00964-3272-45c4-b60c-b64ed20d98d1/sheet/61a0bd1d-cd6d-4ac8-8b55-80d8661e44c0/state/analysis">59 different nationalities</a>.</p>
<h2>International networks</h2>
<p>In many scientific areas, Europe has a comparative advantage when it pools resources and minds. Networks of scholars and institutions make discoveries, push forward our knowledge and transform scientific findings into applications.</p>
<p>So EU institutions and scholars can significantly gain from interacting with UK-based scholars and institutions. The UK undoubtedly houses the top institutions in Europe in many fields. If we take the <a href="https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2024?&page=1">general top 20 ranking of universities</a> from the company QS (Quacquarelli Symonds), four UK institutions are included, one from Switzerland and none from the EU.</p>
<p>Research infrastructure – the facilities, equipment and tools used for science – are <a href="https://www.esfri.eu/esfri-events/esfri-20years-conference">fundamental to enabling discoveries</a>. Some of them are viable only by investing a large amount of money and resources. </p>
<p>In some cases, no single country in Europe can afford the infrastructure needed – one example is the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/07/05/how-much-does-it-cost-to-find-a-higgs-boson/">Large Hadron Collider at Cern</a>. The more members there are, the easier it is to spread the costs of such projects.</p>
<p>Another example is Copernicus, an <a href="https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/Europe_s_Copernicus_programme">EU-funded Earth observation programme</a> using satellites to monitor the health of our planet. It provides open data, with everybody able to access it in real time – which is particularly useful in cases of environmental emergencies. As part of its deal to join Horizon Europe as an associate member, the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_23_4373">UK will become part of Copernicus</a>.</p>
<p>However, the UK has not negotiated an <a href="https://www.esfri.eu/people/delegates">associate membership of ESFRI</a>, the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures. ESFRI projects, such as the <a href="https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/">European Social Survey</a> and the <a href="https://share-eric.eu/">Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe</a>, provide important scientific insights. These translate into social and economic policy assessments by comparing results across countries – effectively using Europe as a natural laboratory. </p>
<p>So, there are potential wins and losses to everyone involved from the particular way the new deal has been negotiated between the EU and UK.</p>
<h2>Prospects for the future</h2>
<p>Some 17 countries are associate members of Horizon Europe, including science powerhouse Israel (which is a per capita <a href="https://dashboard.tech.ec.europa.eu/qs_digit_dashboard_mt/public/sense/app/afe00964-3272-45c4-b60c-b64ed20d98d1/sheet/61a0bd1d-cd6d-4ac8-8b55-80d8661e44c0/state/analysis">leader in receiving ERC research grants</a>), and major players such as Norway, as well as countries with large populations like Turkey and Ukraine. Switzerland, on the other hand, <a href="https://www.sbfi.admin.ch/sbfi/en/home/research-and-innovation/international-cooperation-r-and-i/eu-framework-programmes-for-research/horizon-europe.html">does not have associate member status</a> with Horizon Europe, but does collaborate with other research teams in Europe using other sources of funding.</p>
<p>Whether the UK’s relationship with the EU on science will evolve towards a strong and stable partnership model similar to the one of Israel or Norway, or towards a more ad hoc one like Switzerland’s, is hard to foresee. </p>
<p>If science and impact are key, a complementary, strong and stable partnership is in the interests of both the UK, the EU and other countries with associate membership of Horizon Europe. This can make us cautiously optimistic about the future for all parties.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Francesco Billari received funding from the European Research Council, Horizon Europe, and the Economic and Social Research Council (UK). </span></em></p>Science works better when barriers to collaboration are removed, say experts.Francesco Billari, Professor of Demography, Bocconi UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2134222023-09-18T14:54:09Z2023-09-18T14:54:09ZTears, compromise, divorce – what it’s like to leave the UK because of Brexit<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547822/original/file-20230912-5779-74mjw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C7%2C4723%2C3151&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/NicoElNino</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nicole and Hemmo have two children. Our team visited them at home just a few days before they moved to the Netherlands. Piles of boxes filled every room of the house, ready to be shipped over the coming days. Althought they had lived in the UK for several years, Brexit forced them to reassess where their family’s future lay.</p>
<p>Nicole, who is German and has two children, told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Leaving feels like a funeral, because you don’t realise what’s going to happen until too late, because you’re so busy with doing things beforehand, preparing for it and then once it has happened, you only realise weeks and weeks later what you lost, what you’re missing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The whole family had agreed to leave the UK but choosing a destination proved more laborious, not least because “going back home” was not an option – at least not for everyone at the same time. Nicole is originally from Germany, her husband Hemmo is Dutch and her children were born in the UK.</p>
<p>Nicole’s family, <a href="https://eurochildrenblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/eurochildren-brief-3-llp-ns-2.pdf">like thousands in the UK</a>, embodied the EU aspiration of a pan-European citizenry, moving across multiple nations and settling together in another. These families had to come to terms with what the UK’s 2016 decision to leave the EU meant for them and their future. </p>
<p>But leaving was rarely straightforward. Exit trajectories, our research recently published in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00380261231194506">The Sociological Review</a> shows, are far from linear. They often require numerous adjustments based on the configuration of the family unit. Our study delves deep into these untold stories revealing a complex web of hopes, challenges, sacrifices and entanglements.</p>
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<p>Faced with diverging interests, needs and expectations, families who eventually moved away from the UK due to Brexit pursued two main strategies of accommodating their differences. Some sought to compromise spatially, negotiating and choosing a destination that would suit most family members. </p>
<p>“Going home” was the main choice for same nationality families, although even for them, there were several challanges to overcome. This was particularly the case for children who were born in the UK and had never lived in the country of origin of their parents and were not fluent in the country’s language. </p>
<p>For mixed-nationality families, the choice was often guided by work opportunities and strength of family networks, as in the case of Nicole and Hemmo. </p>
<p>Others sought to find a solution temporally, planning the exit strategy not as a one-off event but something taking place over a longer period. Some members of the family would emigrate first and the rest of the family would join at a later stage.</p>
<h2>When Brexit leads to divorce</h2>
<p>Our study shows that these accommodations were not always successful. Diverging and or conflicting aspirations leading in some cases to family breakups.</p>
<p>Maria, a French mother, told us how the UK’s divorce from the European Union was the reason she ended up divorcing her British husband. When Brexit happened, Maria wanted to talk about its consequences with her husband, but he was not interested. </p>
<p>She then started to think about buying a place in France where she could feel at home, where she could feel safe. As she felt unsupported and dismissed, eventually she decided to return to France alone and divorced her husband. She hoped that her grownup children would want to join her at some point in the future but that is far from certain:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is what Brexit is costing me really. This is the biggest thing. To force me to not live in the same country as my children and possibly to not live in the same country as my future grandchildren as well, if they might settle down in the UK, which looks fairly probable.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Maria’s story and the many others we collected show that going “home” is easier said than done. Return journeys can expose intricate intergenerational tensions, challenges, and accommodations, especially for people who have had children in the UK and don’t know any other home.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two women holding up protest signs in London against Europeans being used as Brexit 'bargaining chips'." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547825/original/file-20230912-7671-865oqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547825/original/file-20230912-7671-865oqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547825/original/file-20230912-7671-865oqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547825/original/file-20230912-7671-865oqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547825/original/file-20230912-7671-865oqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547825/original/file-20230912-7671-865oqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547825/original/file-20230912-7671-865oqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">EU citizens were often seen protesting in the pre-Brexit years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Ms Jane Campbell</span></span>
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<p>The experiences of the EU families who left Britain show how a major political event such as Brexit reverberates in the lives of real people. Thousands of EU-born Britons who often had lived in the UK for years no longer felt welcome. Many of them eventually left. </p>
<p>As Olga, a Polish woman with two UK-born children, put it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the day of the referendum results, my husband and I looked through the window and realised that at least half of those people had voted against us. That’s how it was. So, despite owning a house in the UK, what else, having a wonderful job, in six months we decided to leave.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To many of them, Brexit was a seismic event, and its aftershocks are still being felt after years, but their voices have hardly been heard in the public conversation on Brexit.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uks-island-identity-has-long-shaped-its-political-outlook-is-that-why-it-currently-feels-so-adrift-209276">The UK's island identity has long shaped its political outlook – is that why it currently feels so adrift?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213422/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nando Sigona has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council for "EU families and Eurochildren in Brexiting Britain" (<a href="http://www.eurochildren.info">www.eurochildren.info</a>) (ES/R001510/1).
Godin, M., & Sigona, N. (2023) 'Infrastructuring exit migration: Social hope and migration decision-making in EU families who left the UK after the 2016 EU referendum'. The Sociological Review, available at <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00380261231194506">https://doi.org/10.1177/00380261231194506</a></span></em></p>The plight of those who felt compelled to leave when that reality ended is often overlooked.Nando Sigona, Professor of International Migration and Forced Displacement and Director of the Institute for Research into Superdiversity, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2130862023-09-11T15:42:22Z2023-09-11T15:42:22ZEating insects: the UK seems much more reluctant than the EU to let this industry flourish<p>Like it or not, there are lots of good arguments for eating insects – both in animal feeds and on human plates. You can <a href="https://sefari.scot/blog/2023/06/14/insects-as-animal-feed-in-scotland">farm them</a> with much less land, water and feed than the likes of cows and sheep. Their <a href="https://theconversation.com/eating-insects-can-be-good-for-the-planet-europeans-should-eat-more-of-them-190042#:%7E:text=To%20produce%20a%20kilogram%20of,less%20agricultural%20land%20than%20beef.">greenhouse gas emissions</a> are significantly lower, while they <a href="https://www.eatgrub.co.uk/why-eat-insects/">are also high</a> in protein and essential minerals. </p>
<p>Eating insects makes all the more sense at a time when the global population is still expanding and <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/28251/global-meat-production/">demand for meat</a> is on the up and up. Yet particularly in the UK, the industry has been held back by regulators dragging their feet. </p>
<p>So what’s the problem and what needs to happen in the years ahead?</p>
<h2>The insect boom</h2>
<p>The biggest market in the west at present is in processed insect products like crickets, black soldier flies and mealworms for animal feeds. As well as the nutritional and environmental benefits, they <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6523592/">also make</a> farm animals bulkier pound for pound than traditional feeds like soya. Admittedly, soya feed is <a href="https://betterorigin.co.uk/2021/09/soy-feed-vs-insect-feed-for-poultry-which-one-is-better/#:%7E:text=Is%20soy%20feed%20cheaper%20than,times%20at%20an%20affordable%20price.">currently cheaper</a>, though not necessarily when you consider hidden costs like deforestation and food miles. </p>
<p>The global market for insect protein was worth around US$540 million (about £432 million) in 2022. According to <a href="https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/global-insect-protein-market">one recent forecast</a> it will hit US$1.4 billion by 2029, with <a href="https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/insect-protein-market">Europe making up</a> around a fifth of the market. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1148059/forecast-of-insect-protein-production-in-europe-food-and-feed/">Europe produced</a> fewer than 2,000 metric tons of insect protein in 2018, but is expected to reach a staggering 1.2 million tons by 2025, with <a href="https://meticulousblog.org/top-10-companies-in-edible-insects-market/">France’s Ynsect</a> having set up the largest insect farm in the world. This is on the back of EU rule changes that have made it possible for farmers to include insects in feeds for <a href="https://ipiff.org/insects-eu-legislation/">pigs, poultry</a> and <a href="https://www.michelmores.com/agriculture-insight/insect-protein-animal-feed/">fish farms</a>. </p>
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<p>The UK makes up nearly one tenth of European demand for insect protein, at least according to <a href="https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/4650667/u-k-edible-insect-and-insect-protein-market">2018 data</a> (I haven’t been able to source anything more recent). The UK rules for using insects in animal feeds are mainly based on EU regulations, but we’ve been seeing some divergence since Brexit that could well hinder the growth of the market. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.michelmores.com/agriculture-insight/insect-protein-animal-feed/">In 2017</a> the EU and UK permitted seven species of insect to be used as feeds in fish farms for the first time. These included black soldier flies, common houseflies and several species of mealworms and crickets. Black soldier flies and to a lesser extent yellow mealworms are now being farmed in various locations in the UK, from <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/cricket-farm-london-ontario-1.6506606">London</a> to <a href="https://www.betabugs.uk/">Edinburgh</a>. </p>
<p>Yet more recent EU changes have not been mirrored in the UK. Silkworms were added to the EU list <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32021R1925">in 2021</a>, but are not yet permitted in the UK. The <a href="https://ipiff.org/insects-eu-legislation/">EU move</a> the same year to permit processed insect protein to be fed to pigs and poultry intended for human consumption has <a href="https://www.food.gov.uk/research/the-future-of-animal-feed-animal-by-products-and-insects">not been followed</a> in the UK either. This means that farmers’ only option if they want to use insects is to feed live ones to their animals. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.wwf.org.uk/sites/default/files/2021-06/The_future_of_feed_July_2021.pdf">According to</a> the World Wildlife Fund For Nature (WWF), deregulating the UK market could be transformational. UK farms used just 21,000 tons of insect meal in 2021 for fish farms, pigs and poultry, nearly 6,000 tons of which was from insects reared in the UK. In contrast, livestock alone are fed <a href="https://www.wwf.org.uk/sites/default/files/2022-06/future_of_feed_full_report.pdf">around 2.5 million tons</a> of soya each year. </p>
<p>With deregulation, the WWF thinks that demand for insect protein by 2050 could be well over 500,000 tons, with half supplied within the country. This would cut British reliance on soybean imports by about 20%, reducing deforestation in places like Latin America. It would also potentially create job opportunities in the UK. </p>
<h2>My research</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://sefari.scot/blog/2023/06/14/insects-as-animal-feed-in-scotland">my recent research</a> I talked to ten insect-related experts in the UK about the state of play, including farmers, feed producers and academic researchers. In particular, feeding live insects to animals is not appealing to many farmers. It’s more inconvenient and time-consuming, and costs more because farmers have to purchase insect eggs or larvae – plus live insects have a short shelf-life compared to traditional animal feeds. </p>
<p>In relation to the costs involved in insect farms, some interviewees said the controlled environments required in the UK were expensive in terms of energy requirements and labour. Others said insect production could be energy efficient with the right equipment. Interviewees also reported it is hard to find information on insect farming, the latest regulations and so on. </p>
<p>In addition, interviewees saw a need to educate both consumers and farmers. This doesn’t necessarily have to be an uphill struggle. In Scotland, for instance, <a href="https://www.wageningenacademic.com/doi/10.3920/JIFF2016.0032">one 2017 study</a> of 180 people found that over 80% were more than happy for insects to be included in feeds for salmon. </p>
<p>Finally, interviews highlighted some under-researched areas, such as <a href="https://www.eurogroupforanimals.org/files/eurogroupforanimals/2023-03/The_future_of_insect_farming__where%E2%80%99s_the_catch__final_ver.pdf">the welfare</a> of the insects being farmed and the effect on the animals being fed them. For instance, sceptics question whether rearing many thousands of insects on waste <a href="https://thehumaneleague.org.uk/article/farmed-insects-animal-feed-criticism#:%7E:text=However%2C%20there%20are%20major%20concerns,a%20problem%2C%20not%20a%20solution.">might introduce</a> new pathogens into the food chain.</p>
<p>Another area needing further exploration is feeding insect protein to cows and sheep. <a href="https://www.wageningenacademic.com/doi/pdf/10.3920/JIFF2022.x006">Some say</a> this would be completely unworkable for the digestive systems of herbivores, though it <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8471967/">has been argued</a> that it could help reduce the amount of methane they produce. </p>
<h2>The opportunity</h2>
<p>Despite the challenges, my interviewees saw the potential for insects to help with the circular economy by rearing them <a href="https://www.tescoplc.com/blog/exploring-the-use-of-insects-as-an-alternative-protein-for-animal-feed">on food waste</a>. Other positives included the fact that the gut microbiome of black soldier-fly larvae can be beneficial to hens’ health. </p>
<p>There was also some discussion about the potential to broaden into other markets. For instance, insect excrement (frass) can be used <a href="https://www.mannainsect.com/frass-as-a-business-opportunity/">as a premium fertiliser</a>. There is also potential in areas such as pet foods and human protein supplements. </p>
<p>As for humans eating insects, <a href="https://www.just-food.com/features/insect-food-makers-believe-consumers-are-getting-the-bug/#:%7E:text=A%202022%20One%20Poll%20survey,more%20widely%20into%20food%20products.">many people are open</a> to the idea, but the law has been somewhat unclear since Brexit. The Food Standards Agency has <a href="https://www.food.gov.uk/our-work/consultation-on-transitional-arrangements-for-edible-insects-in-great-britain-summary-of-stakeholder-responses">temporarily permitted</a> insects to be sold for human consumption pending a more long-term decision due by December. A green light would be a very useful step forward and bring the UK into line with the EU.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213086/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pattanapong Tiwasing receives funding from SEFARI (Scottish Environment, Food and Agriculture Research Institutes). </span></em></p>The UK and EU moved in lockstep over edible insect regulation until Brexit, but that has changed in recent years.Pattanapong Tiwasing, Lecturer in Data Analytics and Economics, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2116242023-08-22T13:20:05Z2023-08-22T13:20:05ZWhy an EU document mentioning the ‘Islas Malvinas/Falkland Islands’ is a big deal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543977/original/file-20230822-28-3vjiqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/7ZYA2fEIXyQ">Vijay Chander/Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/20/islas-malvinas-brexit-cited-as-eu-endorses-falklands-argentine-name">recent summit</a> of European leaders and their counterparts from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), the European Union published a <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_23_3924">declaration</a> in which it referred to the “Islas Malvinas/Falkland Islands”.</p>
<p>The summit was aimed at re-energising economic and diplomatic relations between Europe and Celac countries and the joint declaration issued at its conclusion was signed by the 27 EU member states and 32 Celac nations. It is not a binding document but the decision to refer to the islands by their <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-falklands-war-40-years-on-why-las-malvinas-are-still-such-an-emotive-issue-in-argentina-181364">Spanish</a> as well as their British name is deeply significant. It happened despite <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/inside-uk-britains-frantic-bid-to-stop-eu-endorsing-malvinas-name-for-falklands/">reported efforts</a> by UK foreign secretary James Cleverly to have the islands kept out of the summit declaration altogether and has left the UK angry. </p>
<p>The UK and Argentina have disputed ownership of this southerly archipelago since 1833 – a fact promptly underlined by the responses from the respective governments. UK prime minister Rishi Sunak issued a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-66258669">statement</a> bemoaning the EU’s “regrettable choice of words”. Argentina’s foreign minister Santiago Cafiero, meanwhile, <a href="https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/the-eu-celac-first-joint-motion-on-malvinas-at-a-bi-regional-summit.phtml">reportedly</a> hailed the EU’s willingness to “take note” of his government’s territorial claim as a “triumph of Argentine diplomacy”.</p>
<p>Argentina has long advocated for dialogue and negotiation. Britain, meanwhile, has consistently maintained that the islands are British and <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-argentina-find-a-constructive-way-to-engage-with-the-falkland-islanders-54013">the islanders</a> have voted to endorse that position.</p>
<p>This latest incident highlights the UK’s diminishing influence on EU affairs, post-Brexit. The EU has since clarified that <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/68c0efff-31bc-4dd3-81ae-226f9e970733">its position</a> on the islands remains unchanged, implying that it continues to recognise British sovereignty, but the shift in language is still notable. Use of the islands’ dual moniker suggests that each name carries equal validity and the UK government has <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/08/08/britain-falkland-islands-islas-malvinas-argentina-eu/">pointed out</a> that to use the name Argentina uses is to question British sovereignty. It has also underlined that this <a href="https://batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/the-european-union-used-the-term-malvinas-angered-london-while-cafiero-and-alberto-tweet.phtml">marks a break</a> from the EU’s historical alignment with the UK’s stance. One EU official was quoted as saying: “The UK is not part of the EU. They are upset by the use of the word Malvinas. If they were in the EU perhaps they would have pushed back against it.”</p>
<h2>How the archipelago got its names</h2>
<p><a href="https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/publications/gender-nation-text-exploring-constructs-of-identity">My research shows</a> that the rhetoric of “rightful possession” is at the heart of the territorial dispute. It is embedded in the act of naming. </p>
<p>With the advent of the European age of discovery in the 1500s, territorial naming – or renaming – became central to colonial practices. It was a means, as British writer James Hamilton-Paterson <a href="https://www.europaeditions.com/book/9781933372693/seven-tenths-the-sea-and-its-thresholds">has put it</a>, of taking ideological control of territory. </p>
<p>From the 16th century on, various names for the archipelago – the Sebalds, New Islands, Hawkins Maiden Land –- were used interchangeably, each relating to different European expeditions. Often these involved possible but unconfirmed sightings. Other names –- Falkland Islands; les Îles Malouines –- only later gained traction via their presence on maps, highlighting the strategic importance of cartography. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A historical map of the globe." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543942/original/file-20230822-28-1crsil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543942/original/file-20230822-28-1crsil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543942/original/file-20230822-28-1crsil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543942/original/file-20230822-28-1crsil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543942/original/file-20230822-28-1crsil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543942/original/file-20230822-28-1crsil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543942/original/file-20230822-28-1crsil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Johannes Schöner’s 1520 globe, showing the western hemisphere.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sch%C3%B6ner_globe_1520_western_hemisphere.jpg">Public domain/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>British accounts of the Falklands, from the 19th century onwards, <a href="https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20140402140947/http://www.pcgn.org.uk/Falkland%20Islands-July2006.pdf">credited</a> the Elizabethan navigator, John Davis, with their discovery, after Davis’s vessel, the Desire, was reportedly driven between the two main islands during a storm on August 14 1592. This has since <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/10787">been disputed</a> by, among others, the legal scholar Roberto C Laver. </p>
<p>The first verifiable sighting and precise plotting dates back to 1600 and is attributed to the Dutch navigator Sebald de Weert. In January 1690, English mariner and captain of the Welfare John Strong made the first undisputed landing. Strong sailed down the sound between the two main islands which he named “Falkland Sound”, after Anthony Cary, 5th Viscount Falkland, then Commissioner of the Admiralty. </p>
<p>By the early 18th century, a shift in British terminology had begun. <a href="https://www.rmg.co.uk/sites/default/files/longitude/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2014/12/Halley-World-chart-1702-G20_0.gif">Maps drawn up</a> by English astronomer Edmund Halley demonstrate how cartographers went from using the name “Seebold de Waerds Isles” to “the Falklands” or “Falkland Islands”. </p>
<p>Eighteenth-century French expeditions, meanwhile, referred first to “les Îles Nouvelles” (the New Islands) and, <a href="https://francearchives.gouv.fr/fr/facomponent/4eaa91317840b9d6d7de86a71d336850c229e139">from 1722</a>, to “les Îles Malouines”, in reference to Saint-Malo, the Brittany port from which French expeditions often departed. It is from the latter that the Spanish name “Islas Malvinas” is <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/espacepolitique/9440#tocto2n6">derived</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A historical maritime map." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543955/original/file-20230822-15-4uylzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543955/original/file-20230822-15-4uylzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543955/original/file-20230822-15-4uylzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543955/original/file-20230822-15-4uylzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543955/original/file-20230822-15-4uylzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543955/original/file-20230822-15-4uylzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543955/original/file-20230822-15-4uylzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1717 map by French explorer Amédée-François Frézier showing the Isles Nouvelles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Planche_XXXII.jpg#/media/File:Planche_XXXII.jpg">Public domain/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Beyond geography</h2>
<p>In his landmark 1993 book, <a href="https://ia601203.us.archive.org/17/items/CultureAndImperialismByEdwardW.Said/Culture%20and%20Imperialism%20by%20Edward%20W.%20Said.pdf">Culture and Imperialism</a>, literary scholar Edward Said writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Just as none of us is outside or beyond geography, none of us is completely free from the struggle over geography. That struggle is complex and interesting because it is not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images and imaginings.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Islands have always had a certain chimerical quality. Many imaginary islands have appeared on and disappeared from maps, including <a href="https://www.iflscience.com/hy-brasil-the-phantom-island-that-hasnt-been-seen-since-1872-64607">Hy-Brasil</a>, long purported to be off the <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/31021">coast of Ireland</a>, and <a href="https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/GeogR/8/1/St_Brendans_Explorations_and_Islands*.html">St. Brendan’s</a>, charted somewhere in the North Atlantic but never found. </p>
<p>Cartographical history shows even real places, like <a href="https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/61592/do-maps-dating-back-to-1489-90-show-ascension-and-st-helena-even-though-these-is">Ascension Island</a>, shifting shape and position because the absolute position and boundaries of an island can be difficult to ascertain. As shown by the cases of <a href="https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/mexicos-missing-island">Bermeja Island</a> (dubbed Mexico’s missing island) and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/14/canada-denmark-end-decades-long-dispute-barren-rock-arctic-hans-island">Hans Island</a> in the Arctic, over which Canada and Denmark have held a long-running border dispute, not to mention the numerous <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13748349">territorial disputes in the South China Sea</a>, this remains true today.</p>
<p>Place names (or toponyms) often carry great <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286121765_Place_Naming_and_the_Interpretation_of_Cultural_Landscapes">cultural significance</a>. They identify. They connect people to their heritage. They provide a sense of belonging – or alienation. They are <a href="https://icaci.org/files/documents/ICC_proceedings/ICC2009/html/nonref/12_2.pdf">emotive signifiers</a>. Some are endowed with a greater <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286121765_Place_Naming_and_the_Interpretation_of_Cultural_Landscapes">symbolic capital or resistance</a> than others. </p>
<p>The case of the Falklands/Malvinas makes this clear. Teslyn Barkman, deputy chair of the Falkland Island’s Legislative Assembly, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66258669">has urged</a> the EU to “respect the wishes of the Falkland Islanders and refer to us by our proper name”.</p>
<p>However, the very inclusion of this territorial dispute in the EU declaration shows that, post-Brexit, Brussels <a href="https://batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/the-european-union-used-the-term-malvinas-angered-london-while-cafiero-and-alberto-tweet.phtml">no longer</a> feels the need to show partnership with the UK on this issue of sovereignty. It signals that the bloc is open to further discussion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211624/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Wood does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The mention of the Falklands/Malvinas territorial dispute in an EU document shows that, post-Brexit, Brussels no longer feels beholden to toe the UK’s line on sovereignty.Jennifer Wood, Senior Lecturer in Spanish & Latin American Studies, Aberystwyth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2100172023-08-08T16:52:05Z2023-08-08T16:52:05ZHow 25 years of education policy led us to believe we can only succeed in life with a degree<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540734/original/file-20230802-29-94osov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C10%2C3517%2C1782&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The number of students going to university has increased significantly over the past 25 years. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/speaker-giving-talk-on-corporate-business-481869205">Matej Kastelic/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, is putting measures in place to restrict student numbers on what he has termed “<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/crackdown-on-rip-off-university-degrees">rip-off degrees</a>”: university courses that have high drop-out rates and are unlikely to lead to <a href="https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/publications/setting-numerical-thresholds-for-condition-b3/">highly skilled jobs</a>. </p>
<p>Instead, the government is <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sunak-favours-apprenticeships-over-rip-off-university-degrees-w2cnsc8j0#">promoting apprenticeships</a>, through which young people train for a specific career while in employment. Ucas, the universities admissions service, is making it easier for applicants to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/apprenticeships-boosted-under-plans-to-broaden-ucas">compare degree options with apprenticeships</a>. </p>
<p>But attempts to encourage people to take vocational routes as an alternative to studying for a degree are unlikely to work. </p>
<h2>The value of a degree</h2>
<p>A degree is a widely recognised mark of achievement, and its value does not look likely to diminish. Young people and their families aspire towards degrees. They also know that having a degree is likely to lead to a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/graduates-enjoy-100k-earnings-bonus-over-lifetime">higher salary</a>.</p>
<p>Degrees now incorporate elements of vocational training that might traditionally have been associated with work-based training, and a degree has become an entry requirement for many careers. Even when people choose apprenticeships, they are increasingly taking up higher level courses that <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06113/">can lead to a degree</a>. </p>
<p>The current pattern of increasing higher education participation started with Tony Blair’s New Labour government. Blair <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/460009.stm">set a target</a> in 1999 for 50% of young people to enter higher education, which was <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-49841620">ultimately achieved</a> 20 years later. </p>
<p>But Labour’s expansion of student numbers was originally part of a wider plan to boost learning throughout life. This would be achieved by combining vocational and academic learning, rather than positioning them as alternatives. The plan was outlined in a consultation paper published in 1998 and titled <a href="https://education-uk.org/documents/pdfs/1998-the-learning-age.pdf">The Learning Age</a>. </p>
<p>The paper expected that more people progressing to higher levels of learning would benefit both individuals and the economy. It also claimed that “a culture of learning will help to build a united society”. </p>
<p>It stated that people should be able to access different types of learning more easily and at more stages in their lives. This would begin with a new qualification combining academic and vocational learning at age 16-18, which would replace A-levels. Then learning would expand through the growth of further and higher education together. </p>
<p>The proposals also expected that, as more people entered higher levels of education, it should increasingly be financed by learners contributing to the cost of their studies. </p>
<p>Only this last part has survived the 25 years since. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman wearing hijab in classroom" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540739/original/file-20230802-23-rhni23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540739/original/file-20230802-23-rhni23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540739/original/file-20230802-23-rhni23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540739/original/file-20230802-23-rhni23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540739/original/file-20230802-23-rhni23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540739/original/file-20230802-23-rhni23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540739/original/file-20230802-23-rhni23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Learning Age consultation paper expected significant numbers of mature students to enter higher education.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/muslim-woman-wearing-hijab-sitting-table-2160229043">Pressmaster/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1998, Labour introduced tuition fees of £1,000 per year. Under different governments and through re-payable loans, this fee <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8151/">then increased</a>: to £3,000 from 2006, £9,000 from 2012, and £9,250 from 2017. </p>
<p>But rather than a united culture of education – integrating all kinds of learning – policies increasingly encouraged direct entry to degrees as the starting point for a career. </p>
<p>Even though Labour increased tuition fees in 2006, the government was still also <a href="https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20040117012057/http://www.dfes.gov.uk/highereducation/hestrategy/exec.shtml">providing funding to universities</a> for teaching students. This included funding for collaborations between further education colleges and universities, with the aim of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2006/feb/01/highereducation.uk1">enabling learners to progress</a> from vocational courses to degrees throughout life. But the idea for a single qualification combining A-levels with vocational qualifications in schools <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4299151.stm">was abandoned</a>. </p>
<p>A Conservative-led coalition elected in 2010 replaced most of the university teaching grant with tuition fee loans from 2012, then removed caps on student numbers for degree courses from 2015. This allowed even greater numbers of young people to go to university. It also placed reliance on <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/higher-education-white-paper-students-at-the-heart-of-the-system">student choice and competition</a> to shape the pattern of courses offered by universities. </p>
<h2>The higher education market</h2>
<p>This more competitive system made the educational vision presented in the Learning Age paper – learning for people throughout their lives and in all parts of the country – more distant. Universities <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/apr/02/universities-spending-millions-on-marketing-to-attract-students">focused on</a> bringing young students to study full-time on their own campuses. </p>
<p>The proportion of undergraduates studying part-time, which is favoured by older students who are not entering directly from school, <a href="https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7966/CBP-7966.pdf">halved</a> across the decade until 2019. </p>
<p>The pathway from school to university and then into a graduate career became the definition of success for many students, parents and teachers. As a result, recent attempts to divert young people towards vocational routes have met with limited success. Since 2017, funding for apprenticeships in England has been boosted by a <a href="https://theapprenticeacademy.co.uk/the-apprenticeship-levy">levy paid by employers</a>, but apprenticeship numbers are <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06113">going down</a> among school leavers. </p>
<p>The government is also <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/203/education-committee/news/196242/education-committee-blasts-disappointing-govt-response-to-t-levels-report/">experiencing difficulties</a> implementing its new vocational T-level qualifications, which have been promoted as an alternative to the A-level path towards degrees. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1685943556580466688"}"></div></p>
<p>The caps on certain courses being introduced by Sunak seem likely to encourage young people to move between degrees, rather than take other routes. A better option would be to accept the value of a degree, and make it easier for people to progress to them through vocational learning. </p>
<p>The growth of <a href="https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/06/02/degree-apprenticeships-how-you-could-get-a-degree-for-free/">degree-level apprenticeships</a>, which allow people to study for a degree during their apprenticeship, and a new <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/lifelong-loan-entitlement">lifelong loan entitlement</a> provide opportunities for this. But it is still much harder to move to a degree from a vocational course in a further education college than directly from school. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21582041.2023.2219664">Better incentives</a> are needed for universities to create pathways for learners from further education colleges, rather than competing with them. </p>
<p>By encouraging diverse paths towards university degrees, the government can both meet the needs of employers and respect the interests of learners. The way to build a more unified society is to bring people together through the education system, not divide them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210017/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Millward is Professor of Practice in Education Policy at the University of Birmingham. He previously worked as Director of Policy at the Higher Education Funding Council for England and Director of Fair Access and Participation at its higher education regulator, the Office for Students. Chris is a trustee of the Society for Research in Higher Education, a Marshall Scholarships Commissioner and Chair of the Advisory Board for the Centre for Global Higher Education. </span></em></p>The government in England is promoting apprenticeships rather than “rip-off” university degrees.Chris Millward, Professor of Practice in Education Policy, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2110552023-08-08T15:20:18Z2023-08-08T15:20:18ZThe EU is making overtures for a post-Brexit defence collaboration with the UK – but London isn’t listening<p>Michel Barnier, the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator, has suggested that <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-uk-defense-brexit-michel-barnier-foreign-policy-treaty/">the time is now right</a> for the UK and EU to sign a treaty on defence and foreign policy cooperation. </p>
<p>This is the clearest indication yet that the EU is interested in cultivating a new and improved foreign affairs relationship with the UK after Brexit. The bad news, however, is that the smoke signals from Brussels are unlikely to be positively received by the present UK government. Britain simply isn’t willing to consider a formal collaboration in these areas. </p>
<p>As will be remembered, the governments of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49906702">Boris Johnson</a> and <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/liz-truss-eu-good-cop-bad-cop-brexit-team-northern-ireland/">Liz Truss</a> took an unhelpfully combative approach towards Brussels, making talk of cooperation difficult. </p>
<p>Relations have certainly warmed between London and Brussels under Rishi Sunak, particularly after his signing of the the Windsor framework to simplify the labyrinth of trading rules between the EU, mainland Britain and Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>Strong showings at bilateral and multilateral get-togethers with European leaders followed. This arguably refreshed diplomatic energy between both sides, opening the door to new forms of UK-EU cooperation, and even partnership.</p>
<p>But handshakes alone won’t cut it in a world where major security threats are global, from war to cybersecurity and terrorism. </p>
<p>The problem is that the UK government is simply not in listening mode. Despite an early inclusion of foreign policy and defence cooperation in the initial <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/new-withdrawal-agreement-and-political-declaration">October 2019 political declaration</a> on the future UK-EU relationship, the UK government subsequently changed its mind. It then hardened its attitude to any form of official dialogue, tool or forum permitting overarching UK-EU foreign affairs to be discussed. </p>
<p>Indeed, throughout the entire period of Brexit negotiations, it remained so steadfastly uninterested that it deliberately constructed the landmark post-Brexit EU-UK trade and cooperation agreement (TCA) in a way that would shut out any form of foreign, security and defence cooperation. The agreement explicitly states that <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9117/">“formal foreign and defence policy”</a> is not part of the deal. </p>
<p>Rather than an institutional framework, or an agreement built into a treaty – like the TCA – the UK government opted for an intrinsically case-by-case, ad-hoc approach to foreign policy, security and defence cooperation between London and Brussels. </p>
<p>This decision reduced at a stroke any ability from 2020 onwards for Britain to realign formally with Brussels in any of these areas post-Brexit. And so it has remained. </p>
<p>Some shifting of deckchairs has left the Conservative party more towards the centre than the hard right in reappraising relations with Brussels but the government still remains cool to any such overtures. And opportunities have arisen in various forums, including the <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/2023/01/uk-europe-relations-finally-head-right-direction">European Political Community</a>, and suggestions made by EU leaders including European Council president <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/world/uk/2022/10/24/eu-and-britain-need-to-work-together-says-european-council-president/">Charles Michel</a> that close collaboration is vital. </p>
<p>But the UK had rebuffed such advances. Party politics still loom large, it seems, with the result that “domestic political concerns in the ruling Conservative party about being seen to move too close to Brussels” are still paramount, as <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/1147fc63-59f9-45c3-aee2-a15ee570bb84">one UK official put it</a>. That forecloses any suggestion of a treaty and even a loose dialogue on defence. </p>
<h2>A changing picture</h2>
<p>As with so much in international affairs however, broader events have a habit of disrupting plans. In a bittersweet turn of fate, the illegal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has transcended the UK’s preferred arms-length approach to foreign policy relations with the EU.</p>
<p>The war demands resolute diplomatic, security and defence cooperation between the UK and European partners, both in and beyond the traditional forum of Nato. From cooperating with the EU on sanctions against Russia, providing lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine, to supporting broader European war aims in other forums including the G7, the Ukraine war has helped “put the wiring back in” between London, Brussels, and other European capitals. A treaty may not be forthcoming but, in practice, security relations have deepened. </p>
<p>The UK has even felt involved enough to commit to <a href="https://www.pesco.europa.eu/">Pesco</a> (permanent structured cooperation). This long-standing EU project is geared towards simplifying the logistics of cross-Europe troop and hardware transport. The UK’s decision to join in late 2022 is indicative of closer defence cooperation via specific projects if not via institutionalised agreements.</p>
<p>Can the exigencies of Ukraine, combined with the wider regional and global security demands, and the first steps towards defence cooperation with the EU combine to prompt a change of heart by the UK government? Barnier certainly seems to think so. In his view, both the <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-uk-defense-brexit-michel-barnier-foreign-policy-treaty/">circumstances and time are right</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Looking at the situation in Africa, looking at the war in Ukraine, looking at the new challenges for our security and the stability of the Continent — I think it would be in our common interest to negotiate a new treaty on defence, external policy, foreign policy and cooperation between the UK and the EU.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Certainly cross-Channel cooperation has reached satisfyingly cooperative new heights in the past few months. But the TCA – essentially the sole foundation of post-Brexit UK-EU relations – remains a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/oxrep/article/38/1/68/6514747">complex</a>, <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3821574">imperfect</a> instrument. </p>
<p>It excludes much by way of police and judicial cooperation, with scope for ongoing rifts and spats on everything from fisheries to trade. And at this point, the UK government appears to have little appetite to establish a wholly new dialogue beyond the TCA to discuss any forms of bilateralism. The TCA’s scheduled review in 2025 may provide the next opportunity, but world events may simply not wait that long.</p>
<p>Upcoming elections in the UK (and indeed the EU), however, may prove catalytic in <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-labour-british-german-military-cooperation-treaty-defense-keir-starmer/">reappraising</a> both need, and urgency, for a more formal and practical UK-EU foreign and security policy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211055/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Professor Amelia Hadfield is the founder of the Centre for Britain and Europe, and Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, which receives funding from a variety of external research funders, both UK and EU-based. </span></em></p>The reality is that cooperation has deepened, but one side seems reluctant to acknowledge that with a formal deal.Amelia Hadfield, Head of Department of Politics, University of SurreyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2092762023-07-19T16:07:00Z2023-07-19T16:07:00ZThe UK’s island identity has long shaped its political outlook – is that why it currently feels so adrift?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536310/original/file-20230707-27-nxcwqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=67%2C328%2C4402%2C3021&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/beachy-headeastbourne-united-kingdom-july-72019-1445091986">Shutterstock/Tony Skerl</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>UK foreign policy has long been shaped by a particular geopolitical way of conceiving the nation’s place in the world. This island identity may have been forged in imperial times, but it remains hugely relevant in the post-Brexit world.</p>
<p>In order to explain and justify its colossal empire – the largest the world has ever seen – imperial thinkers and politicians depicted the UK as a remarkable little island that was not only capable of running such a huge operation, but was positively made for the role. </p>
<p>Its advantageous location in the North Atlantic, close to Europe but not entangled with it, gave it an eagle eye on world affairs. What’s more, the oceanic space that Britain inhabited meant that it was a fundamentally more mobile polity than other landlocked states. In the imperial imagination, Calcutta was as close as Calais, Darwin as near as Dublin.</p>
<p>In my book <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Geopolitics-and-Identity-in-British-Foreign-Policy-Discourse-The-Island/Whittaker/p/book/9781032448091#:%7E:text=Description,their%20debates%20of%20contemporary%20issues.">Geopolitics and Identity in British Foreign Policy Discourse: the Island Race</a>, I explain how these habits of mind have remained important for UK politicians, even as the empire dwindled. To be an island was to be democratic, sovereign, freedom-loving, mobile and a bastion of limitless and global free trade.</p>
<h2>Your sovereign neighbour</h2>
<p>After the then French president Charles de Gaulle vetoed British membership of the European Economic Community in 1963, the House of Commons was defiant: the UK had a bright enough future separate from the continent. Even Edward Heath, the prime minister who eventually led the UK into the European Community, told the Conservative conference in 1973 that <a href="http://www.britishpoliticalspeech.org/speech-archive.htm?speech=120">“we are an island race”</a>. </p>
<p>The Falklands Conflict provided ample opportunity for Margaret Thatcher to restate a powerful island identity that she felt was becoming lost. Tony Blair didn’t just embrace globalisation as a post-cold war explanatory concept, he depicted a UK that was ideally suited for this new arena of distanceless flows and networks.</p>
<p>These impulses to define the UK as a sovereign, mobile, freedom-loving island helped politicians to navigate the huge changes that occurred since 1945. It should therefore come as little surprise that they have remained potent in this Brexit era. </p>
<p>Certainly, David Cameron’s starting-gun speech in 2013 remains a startling document, not least for his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/jan/23/david-cameron-eu-speech-referendum">lengthy exposition</a> of how deeply the UK being an island has shaped its history and psychology.</p>
<p>Never more than lukewarm about Brexit, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-governments-negotiating-objectives-for-exiting-the-eu-pm-speech">“Global Britain”</a> was Theresa May’s attempt to name the UK’s posture after leaving the EU. It suggests that the only two choices for the UK’s foreign policy are: Europe or the whole wide world. Indeed, these were the contours of many 1960s debates on European integration. </p>
<p>For Global Britain to function as a concept, it relies on notions of British reach and mobility that hearken back to its maritime imperial heyday rather than accurately describing its present situation. The historically inclined Boris Johnson embraced the concept. But in many ways, Global Britain is not about the present so much as the past and the future.</p>
<p>Nostalgic politicians (usually Conservative) could summon the remarkable little island and its empire; free-trade Brexiteers could point to bountiful futures of trade agreements. Both groups could point to histories of and aspirations towards being buccaneers of free trade, nimbly spanning the oceans to bring prosperity and democracy to the world. For Global Britain enthusiasts, the world remains a space without distance, ready for maritime exploitation.</p>
<p>This also informs the more recent <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9217/">“Indo-Pacific tilt”</a>, in which the UK looks to become a strategic player in the vast and varied region spanning both Indian and Pacific Oceans. How much clout the UK actually has here is highly debatable, but the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/aukus-pact-110226">Aukus pact</a>, the <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9704/">new defence agreement with Japan</a> and the <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/comprehensive-and-progressive-agreement-trans-pacific-partnership">Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership</a> at least demonstrates ambition.</p>
<h2>What is an island in the 21st century?</h2>
<p>As the UK looks to define a new place and role for itself in the world outside of the EU, it is falling back on time-honoured notions of island identity. Yet there is far less unity about what it means to be an island in this fractious 21st century than there was during the imperial era. </p>
<p>The debates about how to enact Brexit have been marked by profound disagreements over whether the UK’s relatively small size is advantageous or the opposite; whether the UK, as an offshore island, should engage closely with the rest of Europe or disconnect; and whether and how much the UK could look to be embraced by the rest of the world, especially its “kith and kin” of the Commonwealth.</p>
<p>Although the prospect of Scottish independence looks to have receded since its Nicola Sturgeon-era high watermark, the SNP’s strident articulations of Scotland as a European, Celtic or even <a href="https://www.gov.scot/news/strengthening-scotlands-nordic-ties/">quasi-Scandinavian country</a> represents a fundamental challenge to the often unifying concept of British islandness. This is to say nothing of Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>Many historians have <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/englishness-and-empire-1939-1965-9780199258604?cc=gb&lang=en&">argued</a> that the empire provided the glue between the constituent parts of the UK. Without the empire or the EU, are we now seeing the true nature of a disunited Kingdom? Perhaps Britishness is just a fig leaf for English nationalism. This would certainly explain the renewed importance of island identity to unionist politicians as they seek to define not just the UK’s place in the world, but its very future as a union.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209276/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Whittaker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Geographical happenstance became a matter of national identity in imperial times and is now a handy rhetorical device for Brexit enthusiasts.Nick Whittaker, Subject Lead in Social Sciences & Law, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2099052023-07-17T15:37:09Z2023-07-17T15:37:09ZWhy the pound has shot up while UK economy is struggling – expert Q&A<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537789/original/file-20230717-27-qo031m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The pound is up about 30% against the US dollar since autumn 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/pound-symbol-cloud-111564317">Stock_Shot/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>When Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/mini-budget-2022-experts-react-to-the-new-uk-governments-spending-and-tax-cut-plans-191274">tax-cutting mini-budget</a> triggered a UK debt crisis in autumn 2022, the pound plummeted to almost parity with the US dollar. In 2023 the UK has endured <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/uk-economic-growth-unrevised-01-first-quarter-2023-2023-06-30/">weak growth</a>, <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/productivity">falling productivity</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/20/how-uk-inflation-compares-with-other-major-economies">high inflation</a>, yet the pound <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/06/sterling-is-the-best-performing-g10-currency-this-year.html#:%7E:text=The%20City%20of%20London%20is,as%20well%20as%20Roman%20ruins.&text=LONDON%20%E2%80%94%20The%20British%20pound%20is,continue%20over%20the%20medium%20term.">has been</a> the strongest performing currency among the G10 leading economies. It is currently trading at almost US$1.31, its highest level since April 2022.</em> </p>
<p><em>To help understand what’s going on and where the pound goes from here, we spoke to Ganesh Vishwanath-Natraj, assistant professor of finance at the University of Warwick.</em> </p>
<hr>
<h2><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-26/probability-of-pound-sliding-to-parity-this-year-jumps-to-60">Many thought</a> last autumn that the pound would keep falling to dollar parity and below. What changed?</h2>
<p>The Bank of England’s <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/interest-rate">interest rate tightening</a> is probably the key factor. Though also the government’s fiscal policy has been more restrained. </p>
<p><strong>Pound v US dollar 2021-23</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537796/original/file-20230717-200541-xfxfbf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chart showing the pound's performance against the US dollar 2021-23" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537796/original/file-20230717-200541-xfxfbf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537796/original/file-20230717-200541-xfxfbf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537796/original/file-20230717-200541-xfxfbf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537796/original/file-20230717-200541-xfxfbf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537796/original/file-20230717-200541-xfxfbf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537796/original/file-20230717-200541-xfxfbf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537796/original/file-20230717-200541-xfxfbf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">GBPUSD chart.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trading View</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>But interest rates have been tightened in many countries. Why would it have made such a difference in the UK?</h2>
<p>If you compare them to the US, for example, the federal funding rate has risen from basically 3% to 5% since last October. The equivalent UK rate has gone up from just over 2% to 5%. Not only has the UK tightened more, the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/4391a7af-5c5e-4fda-a494-30d4aa2dbbf1">markets expect</a> the Bank of England to keep tightening. </p>
<p>One reason for the stronger pound is that the US dollar has weakened over the same period. This may account for 50% of the change in the pound. Yet the pound has also gained against other currencies like the euro (rising from about €1.08 to €1.17 over the same period). This suggests that the pound’s appreciation is more likely due to UK policies than foreign factors.</p>
<h2>Why has the US dollar been losing value?</h2>
<p>The dollar is often seen as a measure of risk appetite – in other words, when the dollar is strong, there’s more pessimism in the global economy. The <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EVIX/">VIX index</a> is evidence for this: it is a measure of how much fear is in the market. Since October, it has fallen from about 32 to 14. </p>
<p><strong>The US dollar over time</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537794/original/file-20230717-184356-hng7u5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The DXY chart" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537794/original/file-20230717-184356-hng7u5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537794/original/file-20230717-184356-hng7u5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537794/original/file-20230717-184356-hng7u5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537794/original/file-20230717-184356-hng7u5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537794/original/file-20230717-184356-hng7u5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537794/original/file-20230717-184356-hng7u5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537794/original/file-20230717-184356-hng7u5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This shows the DXY, which is the dollar against a basket of international currencies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trading View</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The whole <a href="https://www.livemint.com/market/dedollarisation-the-eroding-dominance-of-the-us-dollar-11689403313340.html">de-dollarisation narrative</a> may also be having an effect. This is the idea that the dollar’s status as the world reserve currency is eroding because countries like China, Russia and Saudi Arabia have been turning away from the US currency. This is probably more of a long-term issue, but it may still be encouraging investors to short the dollar (bet that it will fall).</p>
<p>One other thing to note is that the falling dollar goes against inflation expectations. US inflation has been falling faster than in other countries, which all things being equal should cause the dollar to rise. </p>
<h2>UK ten-year gilt yields are now higher than last autumn. Doesn’t that suggest sentiment about the UK has got worse?</h2>
<p>The spike in gilt yields in autumn 2022 reflected investor panic after the mini-budget [gilts are bonds issued by the UK government to borrow money – the yields are the interest paid on the bonds; the higher the yields the lower the demand for the debt]. Yields fell back down to about 3% after the change of fiscal policy once Rishi Sunak became prime minister, which was probably the “correct” level for where interest rates were at the time. The rise in gilt yields since then reflects the rises in interest rates. </p>
<p><strong>UK 10-year gilt yields</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537797/original/file-20230717-21441-joaef5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chart of UK gilt yields over time" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537797/original/file-20230717-21441-joaef5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537797/original/file-20230717-21441-joaef5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537797/original/file-20230717-21441-joaef5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537797/original/file-20230717-21441-joaef5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537797/original/file-20230717-21441-joaef5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537797/original/file-20230717-21441-joaef5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537797/original/file-20230717-21441-joaef5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trading View</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Is it unusual to see a currency strengthening so much when the economy is weak?</h2>
<p>High inflation and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/21/uk-net-debt-hits-highest-level-in-more-than-60-years-topping-100percent-of-gdp.html#:%7E:text=LONDON%20%E2%80%94%20The%20U.K.%20public%20sector,amounted%20to%20100.1%25%20of%20GDP.">rising government debt</a> would normally be associated with a weakening currency, so the rising pound is not a reflection of UK fundamentals. It could reflect the fact that investors are expecting UK inflation to fall quickly, but that’s not what forecasts are saying. For example, NIESR (The National Institute of Economic and Social Research) <a href="https://www.niesr.ac.uk/publications/uk-economy-sluggish-growth-high-inflation?type=uk-economic-outlook#:%7E:text=Specifically%2C%20we%20expect%20CPI%20inflation,(figures%201.3%20and%201.4).">thinks that</a> inflation won’t return to 2% levels until 2025. </p>
<h2>Many thought Brexit helped to cause the pound’s 2022 crash. Does the pound’s appreciation reflect investors feeling more optimistic about Brexit?</h2>
<p>Probably the effects of Brexit on the pound were seen more in the one-off fall in 2016 after the referendum. The pound has never recovered to pre-Brexit levels. </p>
<p><strong>The pound’s performance over time</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537793/original/file-20230717-226753-igodz2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The BXY chart" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537793/original/file-20230717-226753-igodz2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537793/original/file-20230717-226753-igodz2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537793/original/file-20230717-226753-igodz2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537793/original/file-20230717-226753-igodz2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537793/original/file-20230717-226753-igodz2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537793/original/file-20230717-226753-igodz2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537793/original/file-20230717-226753-igodz2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This shows the BXY, which is the pound against a basket of international currencies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trading View</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Who will win and lose from a stronger pound?</h2>
<p>The winners will include consumers of imports and those travelling abroad, particularly to the US. Firms that buy goods in dollars will be benefiting. On the other hand, exporters are losing out. </p>
<h2>Is it good news overall?</h2>
<p>I would say so, yes. In general, it means that investor sentiment on the UK economy has improved and the gilt market has stabilised. It means there are net inflows into the UK economy (meaning more money is coming in than going out). </p>
<h2>Where does the pound go from here?</h2>
<p>I always pay attention to <a href="https://www.economist.com/big-mac-index">The Economist’s Big Mac Index</a>, which gives a sense of the relative value of different currencies by comparing the price of a McDonald’s Big Mac around the world. When last published in January, it suggested the pound was 12% undervalued against the US dollar. The new index is due any time now, and will probably show that this undershoot has been corrected. </p>
<p>The question is whether the pound now keeps rising towards the sort of US$1.50 levels we used to see before Brexit. I think it’s likely that we will head in this direction. Brexit was in my view a one-off productivity shock in which some businesses and sectors had to react, such as <a href="https://www.aru.ac.uk/news/fintech-companies-true-to-their-word-after-brexit">by moving</a> certain activities abroad. Now that this has happened, you would probably expect it to be offset by new industries springing up to take advantage of the new arrangement. </p>
<p>There has been a lot of talk about the UK positioning itself to benefit from <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-ai-strategy">AI</a> and <a href="https://forkast.news/headlines/uk-bill-regulate-crypto-passes-into-law/#:%7E:text=The%20move%20indicates%20the%20U.K.,crypto%2Dfriendly%20European%20countries.%E2%80%9D">crypto</a>, for instance. There is certainly potential there, though it’s hard at this stage to know what the impact will be. </p>
<p>However, a rising pound is conditional on the public finances remaining healthy and inflation falling in line with expectations. If there are issues on those fronts, particularly combined with exogenous events like a war that made the world more risk averse again, another crash in the pound would become more likely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209905/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ganesh Viswanath-Natraj does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Does this mean everyone has cheered up about Brexit?Ganesh Viswanath-Natraj, Assistant Professor, Warwick Business School, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2061342023-06-28T15:26:10Z2023-06-28T15:26:10ZWhy so many people have had enough of experts – and how to win back trust<p>When senior British politician Michael Gove announced in 2016 that the public had <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/3be49734-29cb-11e6-83e4-abc22d5d108c">“had enough of experts”</a> in the lead up to the Brexit vote, it highlighted a growing trend for questioning the authority and power of experts. </p>
<p>Only last month, the home secretary, Suella Braverman, took to the stage at the National Conservatism conference to rail against <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/15/suella-braverman-rails-against-experts-and-elites-in-partisan-speech">“experts and elites”</a>. Such comments form part of <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-gb/The+Crisis+of+Expertise-p-9780745665771">a broader pattern</a> where experts and their authority have faced significant challenges and threats from various economic, political, social and cultural sources. </p>
<p>An expert is conceptualised as someone with knowledge accrued in an accredited fashion, who then operates with a high degree of independence as a result of that knowledge and skill. Their power and influence has traditionally played an important role in society – but this authority is increasingly being questioned from many sides. </p>
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<p>At the beginning of the pandemic, there was potential for a restoration of trust in expert authority. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-statement-on-coronavirus-16-march-2020">Politicians</a> and <a href="https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---11-march-2020">international bodies</a> talked about the importance of using expertise as the most viable path to navigate the COVID crisis. The public also <a href="https://www.ukri.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/UKRI-271020-COVID-19-Trust-Tracker.pdf">sought more communication</a> from scientific experts. </p>
<p>Even leaders such as <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/donald-trump-rejects-expertise/579808/">Donald Trump</a> and <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/24/brexit-latest-news-supreme-court-ruling-boris-johnson-prorogue/">Boris Johnson</a>, who had previously questioned the credibility of experts, appeared alongside medical professionals during press conferences to reassure the public.</p>
<p>But as the pandemic progressed, the authority of experts declined – with a few noteworthy exceptions such as <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/06/26/coronavirus-pandemic-global-response-devi-sridhar-review/">New Zealand, South Korea and Senegal</a>, which maintained their reliance on expertise to guide their decision-making processes. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110734911">My new book</a>, co-authored with <a href="https://profiles.cardiff.ac.uk/staff/reedm">Michael Reed</a>, identifies three broad explanations for this decline which we call delegitimation, demystification and decomposition.</p>
<h2>Delegitimation</h2>
<p>One way the authority of experts diminishes is when societal institutions and structures that have traditionally supported them – such as governments, media and business – themselves face criticism, in particular from populist political movements.</p>
<p>Technology-driven advancements such as social media have accelerated this trend. Social media democratises communication and provides global platforms for those who want to question established societal structures and institutions. </p>
<p>This in turn can lead to these organisations turning on their expert advisors, in addition to populist groups using alternative platforms to directly express their scepticism of experts.</p>
<p>There were examples of this trend during the pandemic. Figures such as <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/06/politics/fauci-coronavirus-us-response/index.html">Trump</a> and then Brazilian president <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/brazils-jair-bolsonaro-says-coronavirus-crisis-is-a-media-trick">Jair Bolsonaro</a> openly challenged and dismissed experts. Trump’s position changed as COVID was not quickly “solved”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man with orange face and hair stands behind a podium with a microphone raising his index finger with a doubtful expression." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533198/original/file-20230621-18-c1l04e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533198/original/file-20230621-18-c1l04e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533198/original/file-20230621-18-c1l04e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533198/original/file-20230621-18-c1l04e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533198/original/file-20230621-18-c1l04e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533198/original/file-20230621-18-c1l04e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533198/original/file-20230621-18-c1l04e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Donald Trump initially stood alongside scientific experts during the pandemic before using Twitter to dismiss them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/wilkesbarre-pa-august-2-2018-president-1148319797">Wilkes-Barre/PA/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The spread of online disinformation and misinformation amplified the decline of expert authority. This led to the emergence of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/britains-descent-into-culture-wars-has-been-rapid-but-it-neednt-be-terminal-182885">culture wars</a>” centred around virus control, including mask wearing.</p>
<h2>2. Demystification</h2>
<p>When people learn more about experts, in terms of who they are, what they do and who they serve, their power can again diminish. Individual experts are increasingly being watched and criticised as they become more closely associated with institutions such as government, corporations and banks. As a result, the lines are increasingly blurred between independent experts and organisational agendas.</p>
<p>The UK government used the country’s leading medical experts such as <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/people/christopher-whitty">Chris Whitty</a> and <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/people/patrick-vallance">Patrick Vallance</a> to support its political rhetoric during the pandemic. They stood beside the prime minister at press conferences, but were often scapegoated for government decisions that were more <a href="https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/failures-of-state-the-inside-story-of-britains-battle-with-coronavirus-jonathan-calvertgeorge-arbuthnott?variant=39528280391758">politically motivated</a> than based on medical expertise. </p>
<p>Giving evidence at the COVID inquiry, Whitty <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-65989350">warned</a> that threats to independent experts could undermine responses to disasters in the future:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We should be very firm in saying that society very much appreciates the work of these people [experts and scientists], who put in considerable amounts of time … We, society, need to ensure scientists know their service is valued.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>3. Decomposition</h2>
<p>Finally, the authority of experts is also declining because there are now <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jpo/article-abstract/5/3/248/5151287">more occupations claiming expert status</a>, including management occupations such as human resource management, marketing and project management. While this can democratise expertise, it can also challenge the primacy of the traditional accredited sectors such as law, medicine and accountancy.</p>
<p>The pandemic has highlighted the fragmentation of expert occupations. Many different groups were involved in tackling the crisis, with multiple ideas being debated in public. This led to people questioning expert authority, as they saw different experts giving contrasting advice on issues such as mask use, herd immunity and vaccine efficacy.</p>
<h2>Rethinking how experts interact</h2>
<p>So, how can experts maintain their authority and power in a world where people are increasingly sceptical of them? We argue the authority and power of expertise can be maintained by rethinking how experts interact with governments and the public.</p>
<p>Traditionally, experts have had autonomy to control their work, but this has led to a lack of trust. In future, experts will need to be more transparent and accountable to the public. </p>
<p>Instead of the traditional, top-down view of expert authority, we can imagine a more reflexive, dynamic and contested form of expert power that is open to other standards. This would broaden decision-making processes to wider audiences, and involve a continual public dialogue between experts and non-experts. </p>
<p>At the same time, experts will need to work more closely with governments and other bodies to ensure their expertise is taken into account.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/politicians-love-to-appeal-to-common-sense-but-does-it-trump-expertise-206453">Politicians love to appeal to common sense – but does it trump expertise?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>None of this will be easy. It requires experts to engage with a broader range of people, some of whom they may have had little previous concern with. It may involve persuading others of their expertise, rather than assuming it as a given. And the power dynamics between experts and other people may alter, meaning there is greater potential for experts to be co-opted to other agendas.</p>
<p>Ultimately, whether we have really “had enough of experts” is questionable. But how these experts secure their power, and convince others of their authority, requires a rethink.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206134/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cara Reed has previously received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. She is a member of the Labour Party.</span></em></p>Our research highlights three key reasons for declining trust in experts, and how to regain their authority in future.Cara Reed, Senior Lecturer in Organisation Studies at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2073172023-06-22T08:45:54Z2023-06-22T08:45:54ZCities are central to our future – they have the power to make, or break, society’s advances<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530867/original/file-20230608-3016-2sh956.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dharavi slum in India. Billions of people live in terrible conditions in the world's cities.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Punit Paranje/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We live in tumultuous times. In the space of just a few years, we have witnessed a surge in <a href="https://ppr.lse.ac.uk/articles/10.31389/lseppr.4">populist politics across the world</a>, a <a href="https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019">global pandemic</a>, a spike in <a href="https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/weather-related-disasters-increase-over-past-50-years-causing-more-damage-fewer">environmental disasters</a> and a fraying of geopolitical relations demonstrated by the <a href="https://www.ft.com/war-in-ukraine">tragic war in Ukraine</a> and <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-taiwan-relations-tension-us-policy-biden">escalating tensions over Taiwan</a>.</p>
<p>That has all occurred against a backdrop of dramatic technological changes that are fundamentally altering the way we work and relate to one another. </p>
<p>Our future is in the balance. Cities will be central to our fate, for two reasons. </p>
<p>First, they are now home to <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/urbandevelopment/overview#:%7E:text=Today%2C%20some%2056%25%20of%20the,billion%20inhabitants%20%E2%80%93%20live%20in%20cities">over half of the global population</a>, a share that will rise to <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-revision-of-world-urbanization-prospects.html">two-thirds by 2050</a>. That is something never before seen in human history, and means that the forces shaping life in cities now also shape our world as a whole. </p>
<p>Second, cities throughout history have been the engines of human progress. Cities are where solutions are found – but also where perils are amplified when we fail to act.</p>
<p>This article draws on a book I co-authored with Tom Lee-Devlin, <a href="https://linktr.ee/ageofthecity">Age of the City: Why our Future will be Won or Lost Together</a>, which has just been published by Bloomsbury. As the book’s subtitle highlights, we need to ensure that we create more inclusive and sustainable cities if all our societies are to thrive. </p>
<h2>Cities as seats of populist revolt</h2>
<p>The great paradox of modern globalisation is that declining friction in the movement of people, goods and information has made where you live more important than ever. Appreciation of the complexity of globalisation has come a long way since the early 2000s, when American political commentator Thomas Friedman’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/World-Flat-History-Twenty-first-Century/dp/0374292884">The World is Flat </a> and British academic Frances Cairncross’s <a href="https://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/the-death-of-distance-how-the-communications-revolution-is-changing-our-lives-distance-isn-t-what-it-used-to-be">The Death of Distance</a> captured the public’s imagination. </p>
<p>We now know that, far from making the world flat, globalisation has made it spiky. </p>
<p>The growing concentration of wealth and power in major urban metropolises is toxifying our politics. The wave of populist politics engulfing many countries is often built on anger against cosmopolitan urban elites. This has been given expression through <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32810887">Brexit in Britain</a>, and in support for anti-establishment politicians in the US, France, Italy, Sweden and other countries. </p>
<p>A common thread of all these populist movements is the notion that mainstream politicians, business leaders and media figures cocooned in big cities have let the rest of their countries down and lost interest in “left behind” places and people. </p>
<p>These populist revolts against dynamic cities are rooted in real grievances based on stagnating wages and soaring inequality. </p>
<p>A transformational effort to spread economic opportunity is long overdue. But undermining dynamic cities is not the way to do that. Cities like London, New York and Paris – and in the developing world Mumbai, Sao Paulo, Jakarta, Shanghai, Cairo, Johannesburg and Lagos – are engines of economic growth and job creation without which their respective national economies would be crippled.</p>
<p>What’s more, many of these cities continue to harbour profound inequalities of their own, driven by wildly unaffordable housing and broken education systems, among other things. They are also in a state of flux, thanks to the rise of remote working.</p>
<p>In places like San Francisco, offices and shops are suffering, municipal taxes are declining and businesses that depend on intense footfall – from barbers to buskers – are under threat. So too are public transport systems, many of which depend on mass commuting and are haemorrhaging cash.</p>
<p>All countries, therefore, are in dire need of a new urban agenda, grounded in an appreciation of the power of large cities – when designed properly – to not just drive economic activity and creativity, but also bring together people from many different walks of life, building social cohesion and combating loneliness. </p>
<p>But our focus must extend beyond the rich world. It is in developing countries where most of the growth in cities and the world’s population is taking place. Overcoming poverty, addressing the Sustainable Development Goals and addressing climate change, pandemics and other threats requires that we find solutions in cities around the world. </p>
<h2>Dangers posed for cities in the developing world</h2>
<p>Developing countries now account for most of the world’s city-dwellers, thanks to decades of dramatic urban growth.</p>
<p>In some cases, such as China, rapid urbanisation has been the result of a process of economic modernisation that has lifted large swathes of the population out of poverty. </p>
<p>In others, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, urbanisation and economic development have been disconnected, with rural deprivation and the flight from danger playing a greater role in the migration to cities than urban opportunity. </p>
<p>Either way, cities are now where the world’s poor are choosing to live. And many of their cities are giant and overcrowded, with residents too often living in appalling conditions. </p>
<p>Appreciating what is happening in the cities of the developing world is essential if poverty is to be overcome. It also is vital if we are to understand why contagious diseases are making a comeback. Modern pandemics, from HIV to COVID-19, have their origins in these cities. </p>
<p>Crowded conditions are coinciding with a number of other trends in poor countries, including rapid deforestation, intensive livestock farming and the consumption of bushmeat, to increase the risk of diseases transferring from animals to humans and gaining a foothold in the population. </p>
<p>From there, connectivity between the world’s cities, particularly via airports, makes them a catalyst for the global dissemination of deadly diseases. That means that dreadful living conditions in many developing world cities are not only a pressing humanitarian and development issue, but also a matter of global public health. </p>
<p>Tremendous progress has been made in the past two centuries in <a href="https://wellcome.org/news/reforming-infectious-disease-research-development-ecosystem">combating infectious diseases</a>, but the tide is turning against us. Cities will be the principal battleground for the fight ahead. </p>
<p>Cities are also where humanity’s battle against climate change will be won or lost. Ocean rise, depletion of vital water resources and urban heatwaves risk making many cities uninhabitable. Coastal cities, which account for nearly all global urban growth, are particularly vulnerable. </p>
<p>While rich cities such as Miami, Dubai and Amsterdam are threatened, developing world cities such as Mumbai, Jakarta and Lagos are even more vulnerable due to the cost of developing sea walls, drainage systems and other protective measures. </p>
<p>At the same time, cities, <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/sustainablecities/cutting-global-carbon-emissions-where-do-cities-stand">which account for 70% of global emissions</a>, will be at the heart of efforts to mitigate climate change. From encouraging public transport use and the adoption of electric vehicles to developing better systems for heating and waste management, there is much they need to do.</p>
<p>In 1987, Margaret Thatcher is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-quotes">reported to have declared</a>: “There is no such thing as society”, only “individual men and women and families”. In fact, <em>Homo sapiens</em> is a social creature, and our collective prosperity depends on the strength of the bonds between us. If we are to survive the turmoil that lies ahead, we must rediscover our ability to act together. Since their emergence five millennia ago, cities have been central to that. We cannot afford to let them fail.</p>
<p><em>Ian Goldin and Tom Lee-Devlin, <a href="https://linktr.ee/ageofthecity">Age of the City: Why our Future will be Won or Lost Together, Bloomsbury, June 2023</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207317/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Goldin receives funding from Citibank, and the Allan and Gill Gray Foundation.
</span></em></p>Cities are where solutions are found – but also where perils are amplified when we fail to act.Ian Goldin, Professor of Globalisation and Development; Director of the Oxford Martin Programmes on Technological and Economic Change, The Future of Work and the Future of Development, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2069692023-06-06T14:29:01Z2023-06-06T14:29:01ZUK PM Sunak visits Washington to strengthen ties, watch baseball – having already struck out on trade deal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530357/original/file-20230606-21-psgkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C3820%2C1784&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'I don't drink coffee, I take tea' -- the quintessential Englishman in, well, D.C.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-meets-with-britains-prime-minister-news-photo/1251744533?adppopup=true">Paul Faith/WPA Pool/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Alongside <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks-sunak-says-he-wants-build-biden-ties-washington-trip-2023-06-03/">meetings with President Joe Biden</a>, U.S. business leaders and members of Congress, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/bac3258e-6051-4658-bdc4-8acfc9410242">take in a baseball game</a> during a Washington trip that starts June 7, 2023. He may be given the honor of <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunaks-us-visit-baseball-biden-and-billions-in-investment-lcl8lcjzm">throwing out the first pitch</a>; many at home will be hoping he doesn’t drop the ball.</p>
<p>It is a high-stakes visit for Sunak, his first to Washington since becoming prime minister in October 2022. The British leader will be keen to <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biden-business-baseball-uk-pms-213136143.html">showcase his close relationship with Biden</a>. And he will want to underscore <a href="https://ecfr.eu/article/sanity-returns-to-british-foreign-policy/">his more stable and pragmatic foreign policy</a>, in contrast to his predecessors, <a href="https://theconversation.com/boris-johnsons-messy-political-legacy-of-lies-scandals-and-delivering-brexit-to-his-base-186601">Boris Johnson</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk-prime-minister-forced-from-office-amid-economic-turmoil-chaos-in-parliament-and-a-party-in-disarray-192795">Liz Truss</a>.</p>
<p>Yet Sunak, despite being prime minister for less than a year, is under great pressure. His party remains far <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/uk-opinion-polls">behind in the polls</a>, less than 18 months before the next general election is held in the U.K. </p>
<p>He has little time to burnish his credentials as a leader, and Washington may not be the most fertile ground to do so. Bilateral relations between London and Washington have been <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/bac3258e-6051-4658-bdc4-8acfc9410242">thorny in recent years</a>, and three topics illustrate the challenges – and possible opportunities – ahead for Sunak: trade, Northern Ireland and security.</p>
<h2>The forgotten trade deal</h2>
<p>Sunak and Biden will have a busy agenda during talks due to take place in the Oval Office on June 8, but one topic will be conspicuously absent. As a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-30/uk-s-sunak-won-t-push-biden-for-trade-deal-on-us-visit-next-week#xj4y7vzkg">Downing Street spokesperson confirmed</a> prior to the trip: “We are not seeking to push a free trade agreement with the U.S. currently.” </p>
<p>This is in stark contrast to what Sunak’s Conservative Party manifesto had touted in the 2019 general election – the second to take place since a 2016 referendum upset the U.K.’s trading setup by triggering the country’s exit from the European Union.</p>
<p>The document promised that in a post-Brexit U.K., 80% of trade would be covered by <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-conservative-manifesto-explained/">free trade agreements within three years</a>.</p>
<p>Negotiations for a trade deal with the U.S. began in 2020 under the Trump administration, but made limited progress. The pandemic, and the question of access of U.S. agricultural goods to the U.K. market, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/1fd173a6-8718-4798-b692-685801ec1604">further disrupted talks</a>. In particular, U.K. concerns about <a href="https://www.mercatus.org/research/policy-briefs/removing-barriers-us-uk-agricultural-trade">differing food standard practices in the U.S.</a>, such as chlorine-washed chicken or hormone-treated beef, complicated discussions.</p>
<p>Yet the broad <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/a-new-horizon-in-u-s-trade-policy/">ideological shift in American attitudes toward trade</a> proved the main obstacle. Since taking office, the Biden administration has consistently expressed its skepticism of emulating past free-trade agreements. According to the administration, these deals have too often ended up <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/03/us/politics/biden-free-trade.html">impoverishing American workers</a>, while enriching multinational firms. </p>
<p>That shift on trade policy is not limited to members of the administration. Both Democrats and Republicans, even if for different reasons, have become <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/25/joe-bidens-economy-trade-china-00096781">more critical of unfettered globalization</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in a lifejacket stands on a boat in front of white cliffs" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530355/original/file-20230606-23-psgkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C147%2C3912%2C2468&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530355/original/file-20230606-23-psgkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530355/original/file-20230606-23-psgkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530355/original/file-20230606-23-psgkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530355/original/file-20230606-23-psgkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530355/original/file-20230606-23-psgkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530355/original/file-20230606-23-psgkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Don’t expect the U.S. to throw a lifeline on trade any time soon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BritainPolitics/52fef49e7bc546f4bcc3cbcd3a645ae6/photo?Query=Rishi%20sunak&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=3488&currentItemNo=6">Yui Mok/Pool Photo via AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In lieu of any breakthrough on a trade deal between the two countries, the U.K. has been focusing efforts on <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/trade-minister-in-us-to-sign-fourth-trade-pact-with-a-us-state">striking deals with individual U.S. states</a>. In particular, the U.K. government hopes Rishi’s visit can pave the way for closer partnerships with California and Texas.</p>
<p>But these will have only a modest impact at best, when the U.K. economy is forecast to <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-recession-economy-inflation-international-monetary-fund-growth-forecast/">grow by only 0.4% in 2023</a>.</p>
<h2>The shadow of Northern Ireland</h2>
<p>With trade unlikely to further cement U.S.-U.K. ties, Sunak will also have to navigate the divisive question of Northern Ireland. There is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/10/why-joe-biden-is-so-invested-in-defending-good-friday-agreement">still strong bipartisan support in the U.S. for the 1998 Good Friday Agreement</a>, which ended 30 years of conflict in Northern Ireland. This reflects the historic role played by Democratic and Republican administrations <a href="https://theconversation.com/good-friday-agreement-how-the-us-came-to-be-a-key-broker-in-northern-irelands-peace-deal-202584">in helping to mediate and implement the accord</a>.</p>
<p>In that context, the U.K.’s exit from the EU served only to fuel tension between London and Washington. Brexit negotiations lingered for many years because of the sheer difficulty of reconciling conflicting pressures over the status of Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K. but borders the Republic of Ireland, which remains an EU member state. </p>
<p>Throughout the prolonged Brexit process, American politicians across the aisle repeatedly expressed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/20/pelosi-warns-changes-to-northern-ireland-protocol-could-affect-us-trade-deal-with-britain">their concerns to the U.K. government</a>. They emphasized the need to avoid measures that could restore a hard border on the island of Ireland. Among those airing such views was Joe Biden, who <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1306334039557586944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1306334039557586944%7Ctwgr%5E707718523194ac7991194adfce8016bce541f538%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheconversation.com%2Fgood-friday-agreement-how-the-us-came-to-be-a-key-broker-in-northern-irelands-peace-deal-202584">warned in 2020,</a> “We can’t allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit.”</p>
<p>Biden’s deeply rooted <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/10/why-joe-biden-is-so-invested-in-defending-good-friday-agreement">emotional attachment to Ireland</a> has hardly abated since he has been in office. His recent visit in April, for the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, was <a href="https://theconversation.com/good-friday-agreement-joe-bidens-historic-visit-to-ireland-comes-during-turbulent-times-203258">rich in personal significance and symbolism</a>. </p>
<p>Most of the trip was viewed as a homecoming, with Biden visiting his ancestral roots in Ireland. His time in Northern Ireland was brief in comparison, with only a <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11964121/Joe-Biden-meet-Rishi-Sunak-visit-Belfast-today-no-trade-talks.html">terse meeting with Sunak</a>. And if the message was not sufficiently clear, later remarks by Biden at a fundraiser <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/joe-biden-northern-ireland-brits-screw-around/">left little doubt</a> as to the president’s feelings. He went to the island of Ireland “to make sure the Brits didn’t screw around” with the region’s peace process, he said.</p>
<p>Sunak did <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/bac3258e-6051-4658-bdc4-8acfc9410242">win some praise for the recent Windsor Framework</a>, which addressed some of the tension over Northern Ireland. But he has yet to solve the prolonged <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/1488bce3-7da9-4d16-b3f1-d4c465e218a5">boycott of power-sharing institutions</a> by the pro-U.K. Democratic Unionist Party.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, Sunak will have his work cut out for him to convince Biden that the U.K. can play a constructive role in further stabilizing Northern Ireland. </p>
<h2>Better off sticking to security and China</h2>
<p>Trade and Northern Ireland will likely bring little joy for Sunak. He will, however, be on far more fertile ground when the discussion shifts to the realm of security.</p>
<p>The prime minister has signaled on many occasions his <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-17/sunak-says-uk-aligned-with-us-on-china-mulls-investment-curbs#xj4y7vzkg">very close alignment with the U.S.</a> insofar as tackling China. At the recent G7 summit in Japan, Sunak <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/britain-prime-minister-rishi-sunak-ranks-china-top-threat-global-security-g7-summit/">defined Beijing</a> as “the biggest challenge of our age to global security and prosperity.” And the March 2023 <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/03/13/fact-sheet-trilateral-australia-uk-us-partnership-on-nuclear-powered-submarines/">signing of the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal</a> in San Diego further confirmed the U.K.’s tilt to the Indo-Pacific.</p>
<p>Regarding Ukraine, the U.K. has frequently been at the vanguard of providing support and new weapons to Kyiv. In May 2023, Sunak announced a plan, with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/16/uk-and-netherlands-agree-international-coalition-to-help-ukraine-with-f-16-jets">build an “international coalition</a>” to help Ukraine acquire F-16 fighter jets. </p>
<p>Britain also led the way in being the first Western country <a href="https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2023/05/15/britain-to-train-ukrainian-pilots-supply-more-missiles-and-drones/">to supply long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine</a>. This was after being the first country to agree to deliver battle tanks to support the Ukrainian army. And that bullishness <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/how-the-uk-helped-convince-the-us-and-its-allies-to-spend-big-to-help-ukraine-in-its-war-with-russia-193918302.html">reportedly played a key part</a> in convincing Washington to lift its objection to sending F-16s to Ukraine.</p>
<p>The alignment in the field of global security will undoubtedly help Sunak’s attempt to ingratiate himself with Biden. But the harder test will be whether this convergence between Washington and London can extend to NATO. </p>
<p>The alliance will hold a crucial summit in Lithuania in July, where it will discuss longer-term plans to support Ukraine. That will include the thorny question of offering NATO membership to Kiev, which does not yet <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/14/ukraine-nato-membership-vilnius-summit/">have unanimous support among members</a>.</p>
<p>Even without talk of a trade deal, in terms of agenda items on Sunak’s visit, the bases are loaded. It is questionable whether he can hit a home run though.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206969/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Garret Martin receives funding from the European Union for the research center he co-directs at American University, the Transatlantic Policy Center.</span></em></p>The UK leader’s visit to the US comes amid trouble at home, with low ratings for his Conservative Party. But don’t expect much joy for Sunak on trade or Northern Ireland.Garret Martin, Senior Professorial Lecturer, Co-Director Transatlantic Policy Center, American University School of International ServiceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2064382023-05-31T20:00:12Z2023-05-31T20:00:12ZFrom Donald Trump to Danielle Smith: 4 ways populists are jeopardizing democracy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529348/original/file-20230531-21-ur28mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=520%2C0%2C6418%2C4629&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former U.S. president Donald Trump gives thumbs up as he watches during the first round of the LIV Golf Tournament at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1954, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1998/11/richard-hofstadters-tradition/377296/">Richard Hofstadter, the eminent American historian of modern conservatism</a>, asked a provocative question about <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/joseph-mccarthy-an-american-demagogue-who-foreshadowed-trump/2020/08/27/6d6f3c5c-dbfe-11ea-809e-b8be57ba616e_story.html">his era’s assault on progressive and left-wing ideals, known as McCarthyism</a>: Where did this extremism come from? </p>
<p>He argued in a <a href="https://theamericanscholar.org/the-pseudo-conservative-revolt/">celebrated essay</a> that even the prosperous, post-Second World War United States was not immune to the radicalism of authoritarian populism. The so-called Red Scare of the 1950s was “simply the old ultra-conservatism and the old isolationism heightened by the extraordinary pressures of the contemporary world.” </p>
<p>Seven decades later, Hofstadter’s words ring true again. Conservative movements are always fighting a rearguard action against modernity by falsely claiming to <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2022/07/19/borders-exclusion-and-the-populist-radical-right-meta-us/">protect society from progressives</a> who trample traditional values and sneer at the forgotten men and women who embrace them. </p>
<h2>Paranoid politics</h2>
<p>With so much money and power behind it, this paranoid style of politics — with its enemies lists, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/before-nemtsovs-assassination-a-year-of-demonization/2015/03/04/dc8f2afe-c11d-11e4-9ec2-b418f57a4a99_story.html">demonization of opposition leaders</a> and often violent language — has gone mainstream. </p>
<p>Conspiracy theories are no longer a stigma discrediting those who trade in salacious innuendo. Even mainstream politicians are now peddling them.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1658224143844646915"}"></div></p>
<p>But is there anything to fear from the red-hot rhetoric of the paranoid style of politics? Some argue these circumstances <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/cars.12263">are cyclical</a>.</p>
<p>In Hofstadter’s time, after all, American conservative politics turned away from fringe radicalism following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963. The following year, Lyndon Johnson <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1964">defeated right-wing Republican insurgent, Barry Goldwater</a> in one of the largest landslides in U.S. history.</p>
<p>But the crisis we face today is bigger in scale <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/books/review/dark-money-by-jane-mayer.html">and scope</a>. It’s been whipped to a frenzy by political leaders who seek to profit from the chaos that it incites via social media.</p>
<p>Populism was supposed to bring government closer to the people, but it actually places the levers of power <a href="https://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2023/01/the-shill-of-the-people/">squarely in the hands of authoritarians</a>. Here are four ways populism has turned poisonous and poses existential threats to democracy:</p>
<h2>1. The shrinking middle ground</h2>
<p>Democracy without compromise erodes popular sovereignty by fragmenting the electorate and eliminating meaningful compromise.</p>
<p>We are now in a world of zero-sum political contests, with a shrinking <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/04/us-extremism-portland-george-floyd-protests-january-6/673088/">middle ground</a>. <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-ucp-proposes-referendums-for-all-tax-increases/">Conservative parties often force extreme referendums</a> to maintain their grip on a deeply divided electorate. </p>
<p>Election campaigns have become dangerous contests over <a href="https://www.populismstudies.org/Vocabulary/culture-war/">wedge issues</a> designed to deepen cultural divisions using social media.</p>
<p>We saw this with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-020-00208-y">Brexit as Boris Johnson and other populists stoked fears about immigration and Europeans</a>. Donald Trump did it well <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2020/08/26/fact-check-and-review-of-trump-immigration-policy/">with attacks on immigrants.</a> Republicans are now doubling down on the abortion issue, even though they’re facing pushback from <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/2nd-abortion-regulation-bill-vetoed-by-kansas-gov-laura-kelly">some state legislatures and governors</a>.</p>
<p>In Canada, Alberta’s Premier Danielle Smith, whose United Conservative Party has been newly re-elected with a majority, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/opinion-ndp-notley-ucp-smith-attack-ads-1.6749431">has focused on demonizing her opponents</a> and has <a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/alberta-government-attempts-clarification-as-ndp-calls-sovereignty-act-anti-democratic">engaged in anti-democratic conduct</a> in her months as premier.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/democracy-itself-is-on-the-ballot-in-albertas-upcoming-election-203817">Democracy itself is on the ballot in Alberta's upcoming election</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>2. The working class isn’t benefiting</h2>
<p>Identity politics isn’t empowering working people because the politics of revenge doesn’t fix structural problems. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, conservative parties around the world are marketing themselves as parties of the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/03/working-class-white-voters-gop-house-agenda/673500/">working class</a>. </p>
<p>Populists recognize the <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/10/education-polarization-diploma-divide-democratic-party-working-class.html">working class is essential</a> to their success at the national level because of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/17/opinion/education-american-politics.html">“diploma divide</a>” that now separates right and left. </p>
<p>There is a strong correlation between lacking a college diploma and supporting <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/14/who-are-national-conservatives-and-what-do-they-want">nationalist conservative movements</a> at election time.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A sea of university graduates in their convocation robes and caps inside an auditorium." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529344/original/file-20230531-21-qxsqe8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529344/original/file-20230531-21-qxsqe8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529344/original/file-20230531-21-qxsqe8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529344/original/file-20230531-21-qxsqe8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529344/original/file-20230531-21-qxsqe8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529344/original/file-20230531-21-qxsqe8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529344/original/file-20230531-21-qxsqe8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Graduates listen during a convocation ceremony at Simon Fraser University, in Burnaby, B.C., in May 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It used to be that working people recognized education as a path to prosperity. But <a href="https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/see-20-years-of-tuition-growth-at-national-universities">massive tuition increases in the U.S.</a>, in particular, have betrayed the promise of universal access to a college degree.</p>
<p>Tuition fees are also heading in the wrong direction in <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/education-36150276">the U.K., Canada and Australia</a>. Education now reinforces class divisions rather than breaking down barriers to a better life.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-freedom-convoy-protesters-are-a-textbook-case-of-aggrieved-entitlement-176791">The 'freedom convoy' protesters are a textbook case of 'aggrieved entitlement'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>3. The rich and powerful direct the chaos</h2>
<p>Populism was supposed to empower people outside the corridors of power, but talk of <a href="https://buffalonews.com/news/liberal-elites-are-at-war-with-u-s-tradition-of-moral-values/article_ba36235a-8518-5d32-8b6f-b392e1083ccf.html">retribution against liberal elites</a> normalizes calls for political violence — always a bad thing.</p>
<p>In a war of all against all, it’s not the wealthy who lose. It’s ordinary, hard-working citizens. </p>
<p>Furthermore, once a lust for vengeance takes hold in the general public, it’s almost always being directed by elites with money and power who benefit financially or politically from the chaos.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman wearing a 'team trump' cowboy hat carries an american flag. Behind her rioters confront police wearing riot gear." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478349/original/file-20220809-16-zsokyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478349/original/file-20220809-16-zsokyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478349/original/file-20220809-16-zsokyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478349/original/file-20220809-16-zsokyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478349/original/file-20220809-16-zsokyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478349/original/file-20220809-16-zsokyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478349/original/file-20220809-16-zsokyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Violent protesters loyal to Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier at the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/John Minchillo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. Assaults on the rule of law</h2>
<p>Authoritarian leaders have gained unprecedented <a href="https://www.oecd-forum.org/posts/spin-dictators-the-changing-face-of-tyranny-in-the-21st-century">institutional legitimacy</a> by building successful movements based on fantasies of blood and soil. The paranoid style of politics has entered a new phase with a full-spectrum assault on the rule of law — from inside government. </p>
<p>Populists are lying when they argue they want to empower the rest of us by divesting judges of their authority to oversee democracy. They really want to breach the strongest constitutional barrier against authoritarianism. </p>
<p>Look at the situation in Israel, where Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist coalition seeks to destroy judicial checks and balances and allow the country’s parliament to <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-in-weekend-interview-overhaul-necessary-as-supreme-court-too-powerful/">overrule its Supreme Court</a>, a move that would ease the prime minister’s legal woes.</p>
<p>Netanyahu has been charged with <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/4-corruption-scandals-swirling-around-benjamin-netanyahu-explained">corruption and influence peddling.</a> </p>
<p>Trump’s attempts to undermine the legitimacy of judges are equally self-serving. As he runs again for president, he’s already telegraphing his violent desires, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-pardon-large-portion-jan-6-rioters-rcna83873">promising pardons for the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.</a></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A sea of blue and white Israeli flags during a protest." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517761/original/file-20230327-24-yeeq5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517761/original/file-20230327-24-yeeq5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517761/original/file-20230327-24-yeeq5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517761/original/file-20230327-24-yeeq5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517761/original/file-20230327-24-yeeq5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517761/original/file-20230327-24-yeeq5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517761/original/file-20230327-24-yeeq5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Israelis protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul plan outside the parliament in Jerusalem in March 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The road ahead for populists</h2>
<p>The political dial is already spinning. The defeats of Trump and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro don’t represent <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wnet/preserving-democracy/video/martin-wolf-the-crisis-of-democratic-capitalism/">absolute rejections</a> of their movements.</p>
<p>Despite an <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/30/politics/donald-trump-indictment/index.html">indictment for alleged financial crime</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/09/1175071486/jury-finds-trump-liable-for-sexual-abuse-in-e-jean-carrolls-civil-case">being found liable for sexual abuse in a civil case</a>, Trump is still the 2024 front-runner.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-populism-has-an-enduring-and-ominous-appeal-199065">Why populism has an enduring and ominous appeal</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We can’t count on an easy institutional fix, like a grand electoral coalition to push the populists off the ballot. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529340/original/file-20230531-17-65wxuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A grey-haired round-faced man in a suit waves." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529340/original/file-20230531-17-65wxuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529340/original/file-20230531-17-65wxuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529340/original/file-20230531-17-65wxuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529340/original/file-20230531-17-65wxuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529340/original/file-20230531-17-65wxuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529340/original/file-20230531-17-65wxuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529340/original/file-20230531-17-65wxuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban greets cheering supporters during an election night rally in Budapest, Hungary in April 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Petr David Josek)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Opponents of Hungary’s Viktor Orban formed a united front to oppose him in the country’s 2022 elections. But Orban was re-elected in a vote <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/how-viktor-orban-wins/">widely derided</a> as free but not fair. </p>
<p>Opposing coalitions are an uncertain strategy in most cases, and they don’t work at all in two-party systems. There is in fact no obvious electoral strategy for defeating populism, especially now that the far right has hacked the system.</p>
<h2>Red lights flashing</h2>
<p>We can no longer view elections as contests between the centre-right and centre-left in which undecided voters make the difference between victory and defeat. Nor can we count on the right to step back from the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/19/opinion/democracy-authoritarianism-trump.html">abyss of culture wars</a>. We can’t even say for certain that the populism will recede in the usual cyclical manner.</p>
<p>Only decisive rejection can force the right to abandon anger and grievance, but voters are not yet turning their backs on the paranoid populists. It will take a lot of strategic ingenuity to beat them. And it will get harder to do so as they rig the game with rules designed to disenfranchise people who are young, poor or racialized. </p>
<p>All citizens can do is offer is constant, concerted pushback against the many big lies told by populists. It’s never enough, but for the time being, it’s the only way forward.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206438/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It will take a lot of strategic ingenuity to fight the rise of populism. And it will get harder to do so as politicians rig the game with rules designed to reduce voting.Daniel Drache, Professor emeritus, Department of Politics, York University, CanadaMarc D. Froese, Professor of Political Science and Founding Director, International Studies Program, Burman UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2064292023-05-26T17:00:01Z2023-05-26T17:00:01ZHow did ‘taking back control’ of borders become record-high net migration?<p>Prime minister Rishi Sunak has described the UK’s new immigration figures, showing over 600,000 net migration for the year ending December 2022, as “too high”. While revised estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show this rate is <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingdecember2022">actually the same</a> as it was for the year ending June 2022, this figure is a record.</p>
<p>There are some obvious reasons why the numbers are up, such as “unprecedented world events throughout 2022”, as the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingdecember2022">ONS points to</a>, and the lifting of pandemic travel restrictions. Special visa routes for people from Ukraine and Hong Kong contributed 172,000 people, and over 200,000 are international students and their dependants. </p>
<p>Who the figures include and exclude massively affects the total, and is, to some extent, arbitrary. For example, net migration could be reduced by a third with a simple swipe of the pen if the government did what <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/education/rishi-sunak-remove-international-students-uk-migration-figures-pledge-2366393">some Conservative MPs have argued</a> and removed international students from the figures (they tend to stay short term, and most leave at the end of their studies). People seeking asylum are now included (adding 72,000 to the total), but seasonal agricultural workers (38,000 visas in 2022) are excluded. </p>
<p>Regardless of how the figures are cut, the level of net migration is far higher than the “tens of thousands” promised by David Cameron, and seems set to stay that way for the foreseeable future. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/net-migration-how-an-unreachable-target-came-to-shape-britain-206430">Net migration: how an unreachable target came to shape Britain</a>
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<p>It’s notable that these figures come just years after government promises to “take back control” of the UK’s borders. One of Brexit’s aims was stopping free movement from the rest of the EU. On this we can see fairly direct impacts in the latest figures, with less migration from the EU and even net outflows of European citizens. </p>
<p>The trade off, which immigration experts understood at the time, was that this would naturally be offset by <a href="https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/trade-migration-and-brexit">more immigration from non-EU countries</a>. That is exactly what has happened, although the increase has been higher than expected due to significant growth in numbers of <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/why-has-non-eu-migration-to-the-uk-risen/">international students and work visas</a>.</p>
<p>The “new normal” may be that the work-based component of migration is around 200,000 per year, but that is open to change. Much of this is currently related to shortages in the UK labour market, for example in the NHS and social care.</p>
<p>So while Sunak says the numbers must come down, things are actually working more or less as intended, in the interests of UK businesses and the economy. The increased recruitment of non-EU workers is filling gaps in the labour market and bringing in fees which can run to thousands of pounds. </p>
<p>The gap here is a familiar one for those who follow the immigration debate – between the rhetoric of politicians around reducing immigration, and the reality of an economy which will consistently draw in new workers each year. The numbers are what you might expect <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigration-by-country">compared to other countries with similar sized economies</a>.</p>
<h2>Quality of work</h2>
<p>For migrants themselves, it’s a different story. The benefits of free movement were not only for UK businesses – equal rights meant better protections for EU workers who came to the UK, and the ability for labour to circulate freely. </p>
<p>The new system is a return to old-style visas that are costly and restrictive. They restrict worker rights – to move employers, or to have access to public services – all things that make migrants more vulnerable to exploitation. Indeed, the problems are already becoming clear in the agricultural sector where the <a href="https://freemovement.org.uk/seasonal-workers-face-ongoing-exploitation-as-government-shows-little-interest-in-enforcement/">evidence of exploitation is growing</a>. </p>
<p>Commentators often accuse those who support continued immigration at the level the UK is seeing as being <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/21/britain-must-take-back-control-kick-addiction-immigration/">“addicted to cheap labour”</a>, or avoiding the training of UK workers. But the addiction is actually to a labour market which has little or no protection for workers, and no strategy to improve standards and the quality of work. This has implications for everyone. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Close up of a person's hand holding a paper copy of a Uk Visas and immigration application, over a world map in the background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528609/original/file-20230526-25-9nriuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528609/original/file-20230526-25-9nriuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528609/original/file-20230526-25-9nriuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528609/original/file-20230526-25-9nriuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528609/original/file-20230526-25-9nriuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528609/original/file-20230526-25-9nriuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528609/original/file-20230526-25-9nriuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The post-Brexit return to old style visas could mean higher costs, complex applications and fewer protections for workers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cape-town-south-africa-may-02-1720231309">MD_Photography/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The post-Brexit immigration system has been constructed in a piecemeal and ad hoc fashion. While this looks like it benefits the UK economy, it is short term, further segments the labour market, <a href="https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/jpsj/30/2/article-p120.xml">criminalises informal work</a>, and opens large numbers of people to the <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/rhm/article/view/176707">risks of exploitation</a> and modern slavery. </p>
<p>The new illegal migration bill, following on from the Nationality and Borders Act, makes things worse by eroding what little protection had been put in place through the system to <a href="https://modernslaverypec.org/resources/migration-bill-explainer">address modern slavery</a>. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the lesson from previous waves of immigration is that what begins as temporary often becomes permanent, and the consequences can be long lasting. Short-term “fixes” for the labour market are not just about giving businesses what they want – they are bringing migrants, and sometimes their families, who all need and deserve equal treatment. </p>
<p>The kneejerk reaction this time has been to announce that international students will lose their <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/news/international-students-no-longer-able-bring-dependants-uk-student-visas">right to bring dependants</a>. The UK’s approach to migration has always been more about “firm” than “fair”, with a number of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/06/at-least-1000-highly-skilled-migrants-wrongly-face-deportation-experts-reveal">broken promises</a> along the way. And <a href="https://www.jcwi.org.uk/windrush-scandal-explained">the Windrush scandal</a> has shown what happens when, in the rush to fix labour market gaps, human rights are not included in the cost-benefit analysis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206429/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex Balch has received funding for research on immigration and efforts to address forced labour and human trafficking from a range of organisations including the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) and British Academy. </span></em></p>After Brexit, the UK has had fewer migrants from the EU, but they have been far outstripped by people coming from elsewhere.Alex Balch, Professor, Department of Politics, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2064302023-05-26T13:45:20Z2023-05-26T13:45:20ZNet migration: how an unreachable target came to shape Britain<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528550/original/file-20230526-5088-ui1pvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C131%2C3994%2C2000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-uk-may-9-2019-air-1445235923">1000 Words/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>New data shows that the UK has hit a <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingdecember2022">record high</a> net migration number of 606,000. Through it has been central to 13 years of policy and rhetoric, net migration is, in fact, a pretty odd metric that tells us very little about how the UK’s immigration system is functioning. </p>
<p>Net migration is the difference between the number of people entering the country (and expected to stay long term) and the number leaving. So net migration of +1 could be achieved by two people leaving the country and three people moving here, or by ten million people leaving the country and ten million and one moving here. The practical difference between these two scenarios is, of course, huge.</p>
<p>Net migration numbers tell us nothing about what sort of people UK businesses want to employ, how the different migrant groups who are arriving or leaving affect the economy, or the communities they join (or leave). It only really tells us one thing: how migration affects the overall size of the population. </p>
<p>Until 2010, the UK debate generally focused on the number of people arriving – and on the idea that immigration presented a problem. But in January of that year, then opposition leader David Cameron, on a mission to detoxify the Conservative reputation as “the nasty party,” made a key rhetorical shift. He promised to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/14/david-cameron-toxic-migration-pledge-decade">bring net migration</a> – a metric usually only of interest to data nerds and researchers – down to the “tens of thousands”.</p>
<p>This moved the debate away from a focus on immigrants themselves, and instead to a technocratic idea – a number that could be controlled. It introduced the concept that there was a “right amount” of migration to and from the country (less than 100,000), and framed migration as simply a matter of balancing the books. </p>
<p>This was a big PR win in the short term. Journalists could talk about whether the government was achieving a target, rather than the array of more complex metrics that might indicate whether migration policy was delivering economic or social benefits. It arguably also helped Cameron to be elected prime minister.</p>
<p>But the reality was (and still is) that government only has limited control over who comes and goes. </p>
<p>Demands from businesses and universities to allow key people to come to the UK, and from people whose loved ones lived overseas, needed to be catered for. British people and (at the time) EU citizens could come and go as they pleased, and economic or political issues outside the UK were out of government’s control.</p>
<h2>A moving target</h2>
<p>The coalition years were dominated by this promise to hit the net migration target by the 2015 election. Between 2011 and 2012, Theresa May as home secretary introduced policies to <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/imposing-caps-filling-gaps-or-charging-tax-how-should-we-control-labour-immigration/">cap skilled non-EU labour migration</a> and close “bogus colleges” and <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/international-students-a-or-d-for-the-uk/">cut abuse of study migration visas</a>. </p>
<p>She also <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/love-and-money-how-immigration-policy-discriminates-between-families/">created a minimum income threshold</a> for people bringing a spouse or other family member to live with them, and aimed to “<a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/unsettling-challenges-with-using-changes-in-settlement-policy-to-reduce-net-migration/">break the link between immigration and settlement</a>”.</p>
<p>But the target was always unrealistic. Within a year, my colleagues and I at the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford had <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/off-target-government-policies-are-not-on-track-to-reducing-net-migration-to-the-tens-of-thousands-by-2015/">established</a> that the government’s own impact assessments showed the net migration target could not be met based on the policies that had been introduced. Equally, membership of the EU and free movement meant that the UK had little control over overall levels of migration.</p>
<p>As the 2015 election neared, the magnitude of the failure to meet the target was becoming obvious. A relatively thriving economy and subsequent job creation had helped push net migration over the 300,000 mark. The issue was electoral kryptonite for both Conservatives and Labour, and strengthened Nigel Farage’s then rampant UKIP.</p>
<p>In the end, Cameron secured a surprise majority after a promise to hold a referendum on EU membership. The party reiterated its promise to hit the net migration target, now referred to as an “ambition”, while Cameron campaigned to remain in the EU.</p>
<p>But promises to cut migration while staying committed to free movement began to look increasingly mealymouthed. Director of the Vote Leave campaign Dominic Cummings attributed victory in the Brexit campaign to <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/dominic-cummings-how-the-brexit-referendum-was-won/">the focus on migration</a>. </p>
<p>It also led Cameron to resign. And when Theresa May took over as prime minister, her administration continued to commit itself to the net migration target, including it in her <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39972745">election manifesto</a>. </p>
<p>This time, it was economics rather than policy that pushed net numbers down. The referendum dented the confidence of the international finance markets, and the pound plummeted in value against the Euro, the Zloty and other currencies. </p>
<p>Migrants in the UK, particularly those sending money home to their families, <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/pounded-currency-devaluation-migration-uk/">were earning less</a>. Meanwhile the Eurozone was recovering from a years-long slump, with job creation in other EU member states. This combination is thought to be the main driver of a sharp fall in EU net migration to the UK, particularly from the new member states.</p>
<h2>Caught in their own net</h2>
<p>When Boris Johnson stepped in as prime minister, the net migration target was killed off, to be replaced by a somewhat vague new concept: the “Australian-style <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/reports/the-australian-points-based-system-what-is-it-and-what-would-its-impact-be-in-the-uk/">points based system</a>”. </p>
<p>He continued to suggest this would deliver lower numbers, but with attention elsewhere and net migration lower than before the referendum, nobody seemed keen for a return to Cameron’s “balancing the books”.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the net migration target was hit by accident. It turned out that all that was needed was a global pandemic. </p>
<p>But Johnson’s “have your cake and eat it” post-Brexit policymaking – which has continued under Rishi Sunak – planted the seeds for a new net migration panic. </p>
<p>Under Johnson and Sunak, vague promises to cut net migration have been coupled with a significant liberalisation of the immigration system, most notably in the form of humanitarian visa routes for people leaving Ukraine and Hong Kong. These have made up a significant share of the record-high increase reflected in the latest numbers.</p>
<p>Additionally, relaxations of visa rules for non-EU workers, such as making care workers eligible for long-term work visas and reintroducing post-study work for international students, received significant take-up.</p>
<p>The public has largely supported many of these policies, and concerns about migration (apart from small boat arrivals, which contribute only a small percentage of net migration) have been relatively low for some time. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two women at a march holding a handful of small Ukrainian flags" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528579/original/file-20230526-27-43j92d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528579/original/file-20230526-27-43j92d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528579/original/file-20230526-27-43j92d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528579/original/file-20230526-27-43j92d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528579/original/file-20230526-27-43j92d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528579/original/file-20230526-27-43j92d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528579/original/file-20230526-27-43j92d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The British public have largely been supportive of humanitarian visas for people leaving Ukraine, Afghanistan and Hong Kong.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-uk-26th-march-2022-anti-2152821913">John Gomez/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But despite this, the media and policy response to the 606,000 number suggests that once again these numbers – though likely to be temporary – are causing serious concerns.</p>
<p>Conservatives still appear to regard control of migration as a key policy area on which they can win against Labour. But the party may wish that David Cameron had never opened Pandora’s box with his simplistic target. </p>
<p>Indeed, Rishi Sunak’s response has been to sidestep targets, while reiterating that the number is <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/rishi-sunak-office-for-national-statistics-prime-minister-yvette-cooper-robert-jenrick-b2345623.html">“too high”</a>.</p>
<p>Now that the public has been introduced to the problematic concept of the “right amount” of net migration, the government may simply have to accept that it has been caught in its own net.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206430/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rob McNeil has recently received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, and will shortly be starting work on a project that is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. He is also a trustee of the Work Rights Centre, which supports disadvantaged Britons' and migrants' access to employment justice. </span></em></p>Net migration numbers tell us little about the effectiveness of migration policy.Rob McNeil, Researcher, Centre on Migration Policy and Society (COMPAS), Deputy Director, Migration Observatory, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2058952023-05-24T17:01:45Z2023-05-24T17:01:45ZTime Shelter: International Booker’s first Bulgarian winner is a rich experiment in style, structure and ideas<p>A philosophical exploration of memory and nostalgia, about forgetting and trying to hold on to our past and make sense of our present and future, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/23/international-booker-prize-first-bulgarian-winner-georgi-gospodinov-time-shelter-angela-rodel">Georgi Gospodinov’s Time Shelter</a> is a worthy winner of this year’s <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/prize-years/international/2023">International Booker prize</a>.</p>
<p>If ours is an age of privation, this expansive novel symbolises opulence: of ideas, meanings, utopian aspirations and the bizarre brilliance of the human mind. The author convenes memory, nostalgia and history together with the individual and the nation, to chart a narrative arc over the territories of remembrance and oblivion. Above all, it is a book about time, in its fragments and in its perpetuity.</p>
<p>As with so many prize-winning novels, Time Shelter conjures up episodes of human history to make us ponder what we have gone through and what we are living with. It is a book that forces the reader to go slow, given the sheer amount of stimulation for the senses and ideas that it has to offer. </p>
<p>The author’s use of history is masterful and central to the narrative. The novel is a great experiment in terms of narrative style, structure and ideas, and can only come from a <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2016/06/an-introduction-to-bulgarian-literature.html">literary culture</a> that is not bogged down by canons and rules. </p>
<p>Gospodinov is an acclaimed poet, playwright and writer both in Bulgaria and in Europe, and is the recipient of several national and international literary prizes. The work is beautifully translated by Angela Rodel, who shares in the prize.</p>
<p>Judges’ chair <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/judges/leila-slimani">Leila Slimani</a> called Time Shelter – the first Bulgarian work to win the prize – a “brilliant novel” describing it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A profound work that deals with a very contemporary question: what happens to us when our memories disappear? … Time Shelter is a great novel about Europe, a continent in need of a future, where the past is reinvented and nostalgia is a poison. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The land of Time Shelter is inhabited by just two main characters: the unnamed narrator and their friend Gaustine, a geriatric time-travelling psychiatrist who darts in and out of the narrative, at times claiming his space with profound quotes and observations.</p>
<p>In an interview, Gospodinov said that he, the narrator and Gaustine flow into one another, making him feel like he is being invented by his character Gaustine. With such unstable narrative entities, what readers are left with are voices that merge and lapse, but endure.</p>
<p>The structure of the novel itself gives the feeling of slowly losing one’s grip over time and narrative as the story becomes increasingly fragmented. The author clarifies that since it is a novel about Alzheimer’s, the collapsing narrative gives the idea of the characters and the narrator losing their memory, and the fading effect is transmitted to the reader. </p>
<h2>The past is contagious</h2>
<p>The narrator and Gaustine create what they call a “clinic for the past” that offers a hopeful treatment for people with Alzheimer’s. Each floor carefully recreates a period from the patient’s past, transporting them back to a more comforting time when life was good. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526895/original/file-20230517-22717-7w0x3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A cover of a book called Time Shelter showing five different rooms in different colours." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526895/original/file-20230517-22717-7w0x3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526895/original/file-20230517-22717-7w0x3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526895/original/file-20230517-22717-7w0x3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526895/original/file-20230517-22717-7w0x3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526895/original/file-20230517-22717-7w0x3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526895/original/file-20230517-22717-7w0x3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526895/original/file-20230517-22717-7w0x3f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.weidenfeldandnicolson.co.uk/titles/georgi-gospodinov/time-shelter/9781474623070/">Weidenfeld & Nicholson / Orion</a></span>
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<p>The “discreet monster of the past” is brought back with a “therapeutic aim” in these rooms. The nostalgia rooms become more and more important and effective in providing the patients with a slice of familiarity and memory. </p>
<p>Gospodinov explores the different aspects of remembering. While preserved memories can bring solace for some, there are characters like Mrs Sh., whose shower phobia is traced back to her experiences of the Auschwitz concentration camp. </p>
<p>Memories that she has forcefully repressed surface overwhelmingly in the phase of dementia and become a part of her “inescapable reality”. Some memories of inhumanity simply do not fade away but lurk in a corner ready to pounce in a moment of weakness.</p>
<p>In this onslaught of memories, nostalgia is inescapable. And it is in nostalgia that the personal and the historical, the individual and the nation, find refuge. </p>
<p>What starts with Alzheimer’s patients recreating their “happy times”, re-enacting their histories and escaping into the past begins to gain momentum. As the solace provided by these rooms becomes apparent, healthy people without memory loss are increasingly drawn to the clinic as a way of escaping the troubled present.</p>
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<h2>The unsustainability of nostalgia</h2>
<p>In Time Shelter’s world, each European country holds a referendum about recreating history and slipping back into better times, transforming themselves into nostalgia nations with temporal borders. With tongue-in-cheek humour, the UK does not take part due to Brexit. </p>
<p>This is a modern-day utopia and dystopia rolled into one. Anarchy creeps in even amid the contentment of collective nostalgia, and “the world has become a chaotic open-air clinic of the past, as if the walls had fallen away”.</p>
<p>Gospodinov reveals the unsustainability of nostalgia, even though it can be a source of comfort, and the danger of dwelling on our histories. What starts off as therapeutic ultimately brings chaos and fragmentation.</p>
<p>The art of good storytelling demands fresh perspectives, reinvention, and yet a close tie to one’s narrative heritage. Time Shelter is all of that and much more.
Gospodinov’s deft brewing of European history, utopian ideals and the devastating reality of neurological disorders will continue the conversation on human fragility well beyond the pages of this book.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205895/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sukla Chatterjee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Judges called it a profound novel that asks the contemporary question: what happens to us when our memories disappear?Sukla Chatterjee, Lecturer in Anglophone Literatures and Cultures, University of AberdeenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2051492023-05-11T11:36:26Z2023-05-11T11:36:26ZEurovision 2023: why the stage itself is the silent star of the contest<p>This week, Liverpool stages one of the <a href="https://eurovision.tv/mediacentre/release/183-million-viewers">world’s largest live televised events</a>, the Eurovision Song Contest. I grew up watching it as an annual family get-together. </p>
<p>Now, as a lecturer in theatre and scenography – the study and practice of how set, sound, light and costume work together in an event – I have come to appreciate the immense logistical effort this entertainment behemoth requires. </p>
<p>More fascinatingly though, it is an extraordinary example of media and performance history, providing a yearly snapshot of pan-European <a href="https://theconversation.com/eurovision-even-before-the-singing-starts-the-contest-is-a-fascinating-reflection-of-international-rules-and-politics-204934">national identities and politics</a>.</p>
<p>While the contest’s rules state that <a href="https://eurovision.tv/about/rules">it is a non-political event</a>, it undeniably puts international relations on display. But while looking at different countries’ acts and voting patterns offers interesting insights, there is a silent star of the event that often goes unnoticed – the stage.</p>
<h2>Staging a nation</h2>
<p>Since the contest’s inception in 1956, there has been no serious discussion about the way Eurovision is an exercise in staging nation, nationality and nationalism in the literal sense – namely how these ideas inform the scenography.</p>
<p>2023 marks the first time Eurovision will be hosted in the runner-up’s country due to war, with the UK hosting on behalf of Ukraine. </p>
<p>The host’s stage set-up must be everything and nothing at the same time. It needs to provide a flexible, adaptable canvas for the wide-ranging individual acts of up to 44 countries. At the same time, it must offer a memorable and distinct experience to measure up to previous iterations of the competition. </p>
<p>The stage also needs to embody that year’s chosen theme, while meeting the extensive requirements of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organises the event, in order to allow the competition to run efficiently.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Inside Liverpool Arena as the Eurovision 2023 build got underway.</span></figcaption>
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<p>2023’s theme is “united by music”. After the UK’s difficult departure from the EU, it now faces the challenge of staging itself as part of a united European community. Meanwhile, it also needs to give space to Ukraine to do the same. </p>
<p>The Liverpool stage’s designer, Julio Himede, has repeatedly offered the <a href="https://recessed.space/00097-Julio-Himede-Eurovision">image of a hug</a> – of open arms welcoming Ukraine and the world – as central to the stage’s spatial configuration.</p>
<p>The early days of Eurovision were a much smaller affair than nowadays. When the UK first hosted in 1960 at the Royal Festival Hall in London, it seated just 2,500 people. That’s less than a quarter of this year’s 11,000 at the Liverpool arena.</p>
<p>And if you have been watching the semi-finals, you’ll already have a good sense of the sheer scale of this year’s stage. At 450m², it is almost as big as a basketball court. With an integrated lighting design through video-capable floor and ceiling tiling and huge LED screens, the only apt descriptor is “spectacular”.</p>
<p>For Eurovision, the concepts, symbols and metaphors underpinning the design have to work in tandem with the creative vision of each delegation, as well as the 45 second turnover between acts in the live show.</p>
<p>The design concept also has to be one that acknowledges the particular situation of this year’s contest and simultaneously unites the identities of Ukraine and the UK. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the image of the hug that underpins the sweeping curve of the main stage space aims to offer a more universal theme, rather than one which is culturally specific. Viewers will notice the “open arms” of the stage are echoed in the arrangement of the “green room”, where the national delegations are located during the show.</p>
<p>In this sense, Eurovision is a prime example of a “soft power” approach to international relations, which works by persuasion or influence, rather than the “hard power” of economic sanctions or military intervention. </p>
<h2>The UK after Brexit</h2>
<p>This year, it will be fascinating to see how much space the UK will give to Ukraine, not only last year’s winner but a nation in need of international recognition and support. And to what extent the UK will use this event, post-Brexit, to stage itself as a welcoming part of Europe.</p>
<p>The UK does have a history of highly successful <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2012/jul/31/olympic-opening-ceremony-agitprop-theatre">agit-prop</a> events, which have engaged audiences emotionally to shape public opinion. Think back to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2012/jul/31/olympic-opening-ceremony-agitprop-theatre">2012 London Olympics opening ceremony</a>, which strove to inspire <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13642529.2014.909674">a sense of national identity</a>. </p>
<p>In 2023, the UK sees itself in the middle of global instability and national tension over <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/16/hostile-authoritarian-uk-downgraded-in-civic-freedoms-index">mounting authoritarianism</a> and <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/articles-reports/2023/02/07/yougov-cost-living-segmentation">widening social divisions</a>. Once again, it has the chance to use an international stage to put forward an idealised narrative.</p>
<p>In any such example, the stage underpins the entire event. It is essential to the atmosphere for the live audience and fundamental to its appearance on television. </p>
<p>There is no doubt that Eurovision 2023 is a staging extravaganza and will test the UK’s capability to shake off its <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/britain-is-the-sick-man-of-europe-again/">“sick man of Europe”</a> image. It is a stage which offers the UK the opportunity to adjust its global image in line with the contest’s welcoming theme. </p>
<p>It will be interesting to see whether the image of open arms for the world is sincere or cynical.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205149/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lara Maleen Kipp does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>2023 sees the UK host the Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of Ukraine. But what role does the stage itself have to play in the musical spectacle?Lara Maleen Kipp, Lecturer in Theatre and Scenography, Aberystwyth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.