Mr Tom Howe2
1Monash University, Australia, 2The University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
Biography:
Tom is a joint PhD candidate and Monash-Warwick Alliance Associate whose project examines the evolution of post-Brexit British foreign policy. His research interests include international relations theory, critical security studies, British politics, and the Anglosphere. Beyond academia, Tom has been an Early Career Researcher at the London-based UK in a Changing Europe think tank and has previously worked for a social and economic research consultancy in Glasgow, Scotland.
Abstract:
In 2016, a radical overhaul of British foreign policy appeared imminent. As Brexiteers remade the Conservative Party and Jeremy Corbyn led Labour, both seized the populist zeitgeist and promised significant transformation. By 2024, some changes had occurred, but the story has primarily been one of (dis)continuity. This is clearest regarding the re-emergence of an affectively potent Anglosphere imaginary. Initially signified through ‘Global Britain’, it invokes renewed connections with like-minded English-speaking partners as a way to rejuvenate and preserve Britain’s global role. While the Global Britain motif has now faded, the geopolitical imaginary it signified remains. The burgeoning UK-Australian relationship is a sign of such and a crucial component of Britain’s tilt to the ‘Indo-Pacific’. Less studied than their respective relationships with the US, the UK-Australia relationship is characterised by a striking degree of person-to-person contact across state and society. Situated within a broader Anglosphere, this produces a shared cultural repertoire and transnational imaginary that constitutes a predominantly Kantian and Lockean culture of anarchy. Beyond the boundaries of the community exists a Hobbesian culture of anarchy, orienting the Anglosphere towards a defence of the US-led status quo. Through a Lacanian discourse analysis of official and informal material alongside interviews with foreign policy elites, this paper unpacks Britain’s Anglo-spheric foreign policy and considers the nature of the UK-Australian relationship. It concludes that the unusual degree of closeness reflects a resonance-laden relationship that has been crucial in the post-Brexit quest for relevance but opens both up to anxiety-inducing claims of anachronism.