The Strange Life and Death of Global Britain: NZ-EU-UK Relations in the AUKUS era, with Ben Wellings

Ben Wellings, Associate Professor, Monash University, Melbourne, spoke to the NZIIA in Dunedin on Thursday, 17th August 2023. Amongst its many consequences, Brexit forced a rethink of the United Kingdom’s place in the world. This had implications for long-term allies New Zealand and Australia. Whilst both countries were negotiating free trade agreements with the European Union at the time of the 2016 referendum, Brexit forced governments in Wellington and Canberra to respond to the idea of ‘Global Britain’ being projected from London following the vote to leave the EU. Drawing on ideas of the Anglosphere that had developed within conservative party families across English-speaking liberal democracies during the 2000s, ‘Global Britain’ appeared to announce a return to older patterns of UK foreign policy, not least in the Indo-Pacific region. This strategy was given form by the free trade agreements with New Zealand and Australia, the UK’s application to join the CPTPP and, above all, by the AUKUS pact. Yet it is not clear the extent to which the idea of Global Britain was the realisation of a coherent strategy, or something driven by tactical domestic considerations in British politics. Notably, the term ‘Global Britain’ has been dropped from foreign policy discourse in Rishi Sunak’s government suggesting that its moment has passed, even if the Conservatives were to retain power at the next UK election in 2024. Drawing on insights from interviews with policy elites in the UK and Australia regarding Australia-UK-EU relations, Ben Wellings will analyse the fate of Global Britain and what it might mean for New Zealand. Biography Ben Wellings is an Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations at Monash University in Melbourne. His research interests include nationalism in the United Kingdom and the European Union, and the international politics of the Anglosphere. He is the author of English Nationalism, Brexit and the Anglosphere (Manchester University Press, 2019) and (with Andrew Mycock) co-editor of The Anglosphere: continuity, dissonance, location (Proceedings of the British Academy 232, 2019). He is currently drafting a monograph for Oxford University Press on English nationalism and British disintegration.