Annual Conference 2022: The World Beyond Brexit

For the past six years, the conversation about the UK and its role in the world has been centred upon Brexit. Yet, as we reach the sixth anniversary of the referendum, the world is changing rapidly around us: with the Covid crisis followed by the war in Ukraine and a global cost of living crisis.

UK in a Changing Europe’s The World Beyond Brexit conference brings together academics, politicians and other experts to discuss the state of geopolitics and the global economy and their implications for both the UK and the EU.

You will hear keynotes interventions from Brexit negotiator Lord Frost and the Labour Party’s Shadow Foreign Minister David Lammy MP.

9.30 am Welcome

Anand Menon – Director, UK in a Changing Europe

9.35 am Keynote

Brexit six years on: Is it working?

Lord David Frost – Former Minister of State at the Cabinet Office and Chief Negotiator of Task Force Europe

10.15 am Panel 1: Geopolitics

How has Ukraine and the global energy crisis changed the world order? How should the west manage its eastern front with Russia, and does it need to recalibrate its attitude toward China and other major powers?

1. Professor Ben Tonra – Professor of International Relations at the UCD School of Politics and International Relations
2. Professor Margaret MacMillan – Emerita Professor of International History, and former Master of St Antony’s College, University of Oxford
3. Lord Simon McDonald – former Permanent Under Secretary and Head of the Diplomatic Service at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office
4. Dr Maeve Ryan, Senior Lecturer in History and Grand Strategy, Kings College London

11.15 am Break

11.45 am Panel 2: The global economy

How have the triple shocks of Covid, Ukraine, and the global energy crisis reset the world economy? Is the era of globalisation over? Has net zero been derailed?  And how should the UK respond?

1. Jonathan Portes – Senior Fellow at UK in a Changing Europe
2. Helen Thompson – Professor of Political Economy at University of Cambridge
3. Stephanie Flanders – Senior Executive Editor at Bloomberg and head of Bloomberg Economics
4. Rathin Roy – Overseas Development Institute

Lunch 12.45 pm

1.30 pm Panel 3: The EU

How is the EU changing without the UK as a member state?  Is it behaving differently, and have things changed for better or worse? What are the implications of Ukraine for how the EU functions? And are we on the cusp of a new EU foreign and security policy?

1. Erik Jones – Director of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute
2. Baroness Claire Fox of Buckley – Director of Academy of Ideas
3. Dr Fabian Zuleeg – Chief Executive of the European Policy Centre

Break 2.30 pm

3.00 pm Panel 4: Global Britain – Question Time

The Government has a vision of Global Britain, but that was written before the Ukrainian invasion. Do its premises still hold or has Ukraine changed everything? Is Brexit anything more than a historical footnote? Is the Asia-Pacific tilt dead? Do we now need to relook at the way we work with the EU?

1. Sophia Gaston – Director at The British Foreign Policy Group
2. Stephen Kinnock MP – Shadow Minister for Immigration
3. Dr Nathaniel Copsey – Head of Europe Strategy and Expertise Department at Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs of United Kingdom
4. Anand Menon – Director of UK in a Changing Europe

4.15 pm Keynote closer

Labour’s vision for Britain in the world after Brexit.

David Lammy MP – Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs of United Kingdom

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