Europe
UK-EU relations—FT: Starmer warned he cannot sidestep Brussels in bid to reset UK-EU relations. British prime minister’s trips to Berlin and Paris are the latest in a flurry of European diplomacy since entering Number 10.
UK-Germany—FT: Keir Starmer launches UK-German treaty bid in meeting with Olaf Scholz. Germany highlights focus on defence talks and the call for greater youth mobility
Defence cooperation with Germany—UKICE: Labour’s European reset starts in Berlin with defence. Security and defence has been at the heart of Labour’s ‘reset’ with its European allies, and the UK and Germany signed an ambitious join declaration on enhanced defence cooperation after only three weeks in office. Nicolai von Ondarza and Claudia Major unpack the commitments in the declaration and the challenges the two countries will have to overcome for it to be successful.
Security Pact—CER: Towards a UK-EU Security Pact. The UK wants to forge a ‘security pact’ with the EU. But too much ambition now risks failure. A gradual approach will be more successful.
Labour’s EU reset—UKICE: Much of the substance of Labour’s UK-EU reset will be tricky to secure. Anand Menon argues that many of the practical aspects of Labour’s UK-EU reset – such as negotiating a veterinary agreement, helping touring artists, and mutual recognition of professional qualifications – will be difficult to achieve and have relatively little economic impact.
Brussels and UK-EU relations—FT: Brussels issues UK with list of demands if it wants better relationship. EU claims Britain has failed to implement key Brexit divorce deal.
Youth mobility—FT: UK rejects calls for EU youth movement deal. Campaigners say allowing 18- to 30-year-olds to live and work in Europe would be popular.
Youth mobility (again)—FT: UK to boost exchange trips with EU as pressure mounts for more youth mobility. Starmer stops short of ruling out some form of movement scheme with bloc as he travels to Paris. USA
Afghanistan—The Journal of Transatlantic Studies: Anglo-American relations during the withdrawal from Afghanistan. This article examines the impact of the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2020–2021 on Anglo-American relations using a chronological approach. It argues that this period represented a deviation from the transactional norm in the relationship—an exchange of support and advice for capability. In the case of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, from the initial American deal with the Taliban to the evacuations, London and Washington clashed over what to do and how best to do it due to differing interests, yet the overall relationship survived. There are three implications. First, the special relationship is transactional, but when the exchange of benefits ceases due to diverging interests, disputes occur until the exchange is restored. Second, the relationship survived despite the claims to the contrary. Third, the relationship appears to be more important to London than Washington. Environment
Climate change—RUSI: Keeping the UK Secure in a Climate-Changed World. The new UK government faces a world being made more volatile by climate change. In response, the forthcoming Strategic Defence Review must place climate considerations at the heart of national security decision-making. Migration
Skills—FT: Is the UK too reliant on overseas hires for tech and engineering jobs? Government commissions review of two graduate sectors that appear mired in permanent skills crisis.
Migrant returns—FT: UK aims to boost migrant returns with new ‘support’ deals. Labour government posts contract to ‘reintegrate’ returnees in 11 countries in bid to reduce asylum backlog
Asylum overspends—IFS: Home Office budgeting and asylum overspends. The Home Office has repeatedly spent far more than budgeted for asylum, border, visa and passport operations in recent years. Defence
Cuts—FT: Ministry of Defence asks suppliers to identify budget cuts. Contractors told that department faces ‘significant fiscal pressure’ and needs to make some hard choices
Training—RUSI: The Strategic Defence Review Must Put Training at its Heart. As the new UK government considers its priorities for the forthcoming Strategic Defence Review, it must ensure that decisions about capabilities appropriately reflect the requirement for access to realistic, demanding and predictably funded training.
Defence review—ECFR: Britain’s “root and branch” defence review must address two key questions. In a transformed geostrategic environment, Britain’s upcoming Strategic Defence Review must redefine the type of armed forces the country needs – while confronting the defence budget’s chronic wastefulness National Security
National Security Advisor—Guardian: Starmer cancels appointment of Gwyn Jenkins as national security adviser. Exclusive: PM’s decision seen by some in Whitehall as precursor for role going to more politically loyal candidate.
Brexit
Security Cooperation—JCMS: Navigating the Uncertainties of Post-disruption Dynamics in Discourse: A Case Study of the EU–UK Security Relationship After Brexit. The article presents a model that conceptualizes the discursive construction of post-disruption dynamics endorsed and reproduced by the affected parties and its potential to (not) contribute to future co-operation. Conceiving of Brexit as a prime case of a broader phenomenon of post-disruption contexts, this paper applies this model to the empirical case of the post-Brexit European Union (EU)–United Kingdom (UK) security co-operation in order to reveal how considerations on Brexit-related re-engagement and de-engagement in the context of the EU–UK security relationship were discursively articulated by the UK government and the European Commission in the 2016–2023 period. The findings show that despite the lack of tangible actions and a seemingly continuous string of missed opportunities, the institutional discourse production has largely fulfilled an enabling function vis-à-vis potential future co-operation. At the same time, this article highlights the lingering effects of Brexit-triggered discord.
Brexit’s effect on the EU—Journal of European Integration: Post-Brexit council: winners and losers after the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. This paper examines the impact of Brexit on the voting system in the Council. For this purpose, the study is developing a new voting model which abandons the assumption that each coalition of players is equally likely. The analysis focuses on the structure of blocking for the voting game. I find that for seven most populous Member States, Brexit has had profound effects on their ability to build minimal blocking coalitions in the Council when QMV is used. The Germany’s ability to build the smallest blocking coalitions has increased dramatically. The position of Italy and Spain, and consequently that of the Mediterranean states, has also been strengthening. Moreover, France has become a pivotal player in the disputes between the North and the South. These findings have important implications for institutional design, negotiations between Member States in the Council and the European Commission’s legislative influence as an agenda-setter.
Brexit and tax—Common Law World Review: The lingering laws? Does the Brexit Agreement provide the EU with authority to monitor the UK income tax system? A primary goal of Brexit supporters was the end of EU supervision of UK laws and the reestablishment of full UK sovereignty over all aspects of its legislative and administrative capacity. National sovereignty may, however, be compromised by international treaties in which the UK agrees to constrain the exercise of its sovereignty to gain benefits from its treaty partners and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement governing the post-Brexit relationship between the UK and EU is no exception. In particular, the Agreement appeared to impose four constraints on UK sovereignty in respect of its income tax system. A closer examination of the restrictive articles, however, suggests that three of the measures may have negligible practical impact on UK law-making powers. In contrast, the fourth measure preventing the UK from adopting concessionary tax measures that would amount to ‘state aid’ in EU terminology appears to have a direct impact on UK tax sovereignty. Its impact may be blunted, however, from seemingly incomplete or ineffective enforcement remedies. The final result may be a treaty that appears to constrain UK tax sovereignty and provides the EU with continuing authority to monitor UK tax law and administration, but which has little scope for practical impact.
Brexit and small states—International Politics: Small European states and Brexit: comparing the coping strategies of Portugal and Finland. Brexit was a major European Union crisis with acute implications for smaller European countries. Both Portugal and Finland have considerably relied on the EU as small, geographically peripheral and ‘core’ member states. The comparison of their strategic responses to Brexit shows significant ‘sheltering’ within the EU but also more pro-active strategies in specific areas. While a hedging of bets was more prominent for Portugal in the foreign policy-area, reacting to the risk of a less ‘Atlantic’ EU, for Finland it was more notorious in the political economy domain where the country lost an important ‘liberal’ ally. These original comparative findings highlight both the EU’s enduring importance for small European states and the national efforts to preserve autonomy and influence under a more volatile continental landscape. The article also advances the ongoing discussion on the strategic adjustment to Brexit by suggesting possible factors helping understanding the pursuance of different coping strategies.
Brexit and Northern Ireland—The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Geopolitics. Northern Ireland Protocol: The Crux of the Crisis of Brexit. The Northern Ireland Protocol was designed by the EU as a solution to the challenges of Brexit on the island of Ireland; it had remarkably little input from either the UK government in London or the devolved Northern Ireland Executive, which had collapsed before the formal negotiations began. EU dominance of commerce, its far higher competence in the policy and legal areas at stake, its control of the exit process as well as its political unity made it by far the strongest party in the negotiations. This resulted in a very one-sided agreement in 2018 (partly revised in 2019) which was unable to work operationally and destabilized Northern Irelands politics and society. It was only when these problems became clear and the UK was able to communicate a better understanding of both Northern Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement that the British state was able, in the Windsor Framework of 2023, to reverse some of the concessions that it had made in the early stages of the negotiations.
The Rejoin movement—BJPIR: The United Kingdom’s Rejoin movement: A post-Brexit analysis of framing strategies. Within the growing body of work on post-Brexit politics, there is a notable absence of research on pro-European activism. Although anti-Brexit activism received attention in the aftermath of the 2016 referendum, its development following the UK’s departure from the EU remains underexplored. This article addresses this gap by using discourse network analysis to examine posts authored by National Rejoin March speakers and organisers on X (formerly Twitter). Analysing the framing strategies of the post-2020 Rejoin movement, the article delineates existing conceptualisations of diagnostic and prognostic framing tasks by focusing on four key components: grievances, perpetrators, solutions, and strategy. The findings reflect the Rejoin movement’s emergence from the anti-Brexit movement, now advocating for EU membership in a post-Brexit context. Although economic grievances and anti-Conservative sentiment continue to dominate the movement’s framing, Rejoin placed a greater emphasis on solutions offered by the EU. Despite this, the movement displayed a lack of coherence in addressing key issues including free movement and democracy, both of which had been problematic for previous pro-European campaigns. This lack of coherence underscores the ongoing challenges in crafting a unified and compelling proEuropean narrative within an evolving post-Brexit political landscape.
Brexit and Ireland’s economy—IZA: Brexit Had No Measurable Effect on Irish Exporters. We study the impact of the Brexit referendum on Irish exporters to the UK. The referendum triggered a sharp devaluation of the British pound vis-a-vis the euro and led to considerable uncertainty about future trade relations between the UK and the EU. Using administrative data on the universe of Irish exporters, we compare exporters with different levels of exposure to the UK market before the referendum. Our findings do not point to a significant effect of the referendum on Irish exporters. Over the period 2015-2021, the firms least exposed to the UK — but most internationalised otherwise — had considerably higher exit rates from exporting to the UK and from the market overall. They also saw greater declines in employment and sales compared to more exposed firms. We do not find significant differences for export volumes to the UK or elsewhere or for average wages. These findings are robust to controlling for a variety of firm characteristics.
Comments