Tag: Brexit

The British Way in Trade Policy in global perspective: from the Corn Laws to ‘Global Britain’ (History & Policy, London, Feb. 6)

Published on by CIGH Exeter

Marc-William Palen
University of Exeter

History & Policy’s Global Economics and History Forum is hosting a timely event in early February. Please be sure to register (link below) if you wish to attend.

The British Way in Trade Policy in global perspective: from the Corn Laws to ‘Global Britain’

When: Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024, 17:00 pm – 19:30 pm

Where: Room G7, Ground Floor, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

This workshop is designed broadly to come within the ambit of the AHRC-funded Letters of Richard Cobden Online project and will draw from those letters in order to enhance our understanding of British trade policy in its formative period. For not only was Richard Cobden (1804-65) central to establishing unilateral free trade in Britain through the Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 but in 1859-60 undertook the laborious negotiation of the first Britain free trade agreement, the Anglo-French commercial treaty of 1860. His letters also deal prominently with the expansion of British trade in India, Japan, and China, while having visited the United States twice, he was also an important contributor to, and commentator on, Anglo-American relations. He was also central to the liberal internationalist tradition linking trade, interdependence, and peace.    

British free trade in the mid-nineteenth century remains a benchmark frequently cited in current trade discussions (e.g. Liz Truss, Times Red Box ed. 9 June 2020; Rishi Sunak, 31 Mar. 2023 ‘we are at heart an open and free-trading nation’), and it is to this contemporary discussion that the proposed workshop/ seminar is intended to contribute. The recent Australian Free Agreement was widely hailed as a return to British free trade policy, the such treaty since Britain joined Europe in 1973, and hence ‘the first trade deal to be signed by the UK as an independent free-trading nation in nearly half a century’ (Lord Younger, HL 11 July 2022). However, latest debate on the subsequent Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for a Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership (House of Lords 21 Nov. 2023) has also focused on the lack of a published government trade strategy. The potential Labour approach to trade policy also remains to be defined. This workshop/seminar is therefore designed to provide a concrete analysis of British commercial policy between the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 (also referred to in the July 2022 debate) and joining Europe in 1973 with a view to informing current thinking on trade policy and the tradition to which, after an ‘European interlude’, it is the successor. To this end, the ‘British ‘way’ in trade policy will be contrasted with American, Chinese, and European ways in trade policy. This seminar is designed to bring together historians, policymakers, politicians, and members of think-tanks and interested academics and members of the public.  

Confirmed speakers include:

  • Professor Anthony Howe, University of East Anglia, author inter alia of Free Trade and Liberal England, 1846-1946 (1998); currently researching Free Trade: an international history from Adam Smith to the WTO.  
  • Professor Douglas Irwin, Dartmouth College, author of Clashing over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy (2017)
  • Prof David Thackeray, University of Exeter, author of Forging a British World of Trade: Culture, Ethnicity, and Market in the Empire-Commonwealth (2019)
  • Dr Marc Palen, University of Exeter (Global Economics and History Forum), author of The “Conspiracy” of Free Trade: The Anglo-American Struggle over Empire and Globalisation, 1846-1896 (2016) and Pax Economica: Left-Wing Visions of a Free Trade World (forthcoming, 2024) 
  • Professor Piers Ludlow, London School of Economics, author, inter alia, of Roy Jenkins and the European Commission Presidency, 1976-1980: at the heart of Europe (2016).
  • Professor Elizabeth Ingleson, London School of Economics, author of the forthcoming Made in China: When US – China Interests Converged to Transform Global Trade (Harvard, 2024).

Click here to register

Brexit One Year On: The Will of the People: Did Brexit Break the British Constitution?

Published on by CIGH Exeter

British, Irish and Empire Studies
University of Texas at Austin

Scholars Stuart Ward and Robert Saunders explore the complicated relationships among Brexit, the British people and the British Constitution

Wednesday April 27, 2022 • Virtual

12:00 PM – 1:30 PM

Please join us at noon CDT on Wednesday, April 27, for the final installment in our spring virtual speaker series, Brexit One Year On: “The Will of the People: Did Brexit Break the British Constitution?” Scholars Stuart Ward of Copenhagen University and Robert Saunders of Queen Mary College University of London will delve into the complex relationships of Brexit, the British people, and the British Constitution. Marc-William Palen of Exeter University will chair.

Please register in advance using this Zoom link:

https://utexas.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIsdOCgrjgrHt3wb9OwR_f_Wc-C4V_zii09

After you register, you will receive information on how to join the meeting.

Questions? Contact the BIES staff at Marian.Barber@austin.utexas.edu.

Continue reading “Brexit One Year On: The Will of the People: Did Brexit Break the British Constitution?” →

America has a unique 300 year old view of free trade – UK must recognise this to strike a deal

Published on by CIGH Exeter
Let battle commence. Novikov Aleksey

Emma Hart
University of St Andrews

With Boris Johnson hailing parliament’s vote towards Britain leaving the EU on January 31, there is a general consensus among the country’s leaders that there will be an intimate trading relationship with the US after Brexit. But whenever the question of a deal comes up in the media, there is usually much talk of stumbling blocks.

There is the war of words between UK chancellor Sajid Javid and US treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin over a digital tax on American companies in the UK, for instance. Or fears that the NHS will be sold off to US healthcare giants.

Much is also written about the difficulty the UK faces in steering a course between its EU neighbours and the overwhelming political might of Washington. For example, will the UK have to abandon the Iran nuclear deal to win free-trade concessions from America?

In light of the “special relationship”, you might wonder how these trade negotiations can be so testy before they are even underway. As my recent book suggests, the conflict may well lie in the historic trading relationship between the two countries. Much as Britain and America are “two nations divided by a common language”, they are also divided by their understanding of trade. To comprehend this, you have to go back to the American Revolution and beyond. Continue reading “America has a unique 300 year old view of free trade – UK must recognise this to strike a deal” →

Colonialism: A Shared EUropean History and Legacy – A Lecture by Prof. Elizabeth Buettner

Published on by CIGH Exeter2 Comments

You are warmly invited to attend the fourth annual lecture of the Centre for Imperial and Global History, which will be delivered by Prof. Elizabeth Buettner of the University of Amsterdam. Her lecture will be entitled ‘Colonialism: A Shared EUropean History and Legacy’.

When/where: It will take place on Thursday 16 May at 5pm in the Queen’s Building, Margaret Rooms 2 & 3.

Attendance is free but please do register on Eventbrite.

Prof. Buettner’s research centres on British imperial, social, and cultural history since the late nineteenth century along with other European nations’ histories of late colonialism, decolonisation and their domestic ramifications. In the coming years she looks forward to expanding upon previous research on postcolonial South Asian migration and cultures in diaspora, placing South Asians in Britain within wider transnational contexts. Prof. Buettner received her BA from Barnard College of Columbia University and her MA and PhD from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. She has taught in England at the University of York since 2000 and in 2012-2013 held a senior research fellowship at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies in Germany in conjunction with a British Academy mid-career fellowship. Buettner’s publications include Empire Families: Britons and Late Imperial India (Oxford University Press, 2004) together with articles in the Journal of Modern History, History & Memory, Scottish Historical Review, Annales de Démographie Historique, Ab Imperio, Food and History, and a number of edited collections.

ABSTRACT

Brexit-era Britain saw discussions of Europe and Britain’s imperial past explode in political and public culture, with some leading figures in the ‘leave’ campaign notoriously going so far as to look forward to an ‘Empire 2.0’ of enhanced global engagements once Britain became freed from continental shackles. Yet imperial histories, heritage, and legacies are anything but a uniquely British ‘island story’. This talk builds upon selected themes addressed in my book Europe after Empire: Decolonization, Society, and Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2016), where I considered Britain as well as French, Belgian, Dutch, and Portuguese histories of coming to terms with the end of empire at home with a special emphasis on migration, multicultural societies, and memories of empire in postcolonial Western Europe. It connects topics that have received most attention among scholars who focus on Western European national cases with a newer but growing body of work that positions colonialism and empire as decisive aspects of European history across the continent, extending to Nordic countries as well as Central and Eastern Europe. Making the ‘imperial turn’ not only characteristic of specific nations but rather a shared European history entails taking a ‘continental turn’, one that allows fresh approaches to Europe’s overseas and continental empires past and illuminates the still understudied colonial history and heritage of today’s European Union.

Interview with Dr. Olivette Otele – ‘Bordering on Brexit: Global Britain and the Embers of Empire’ Conference

Published on by CIGH Exeter

The ‘Bordering on Brexit: Global Britain and the Embers of Empire‘ Conference was held last weekend at Garrison Library, Gibraltar. Professor Richard Toye, Director of Exeter’s Centre for Imperial and Global History, interviews Dr. Olivette Otele (Bath Spa) on the question of contested and controversial history and memorialisation in Bristol.

Interview with Fintan O’Toole – ‘Bordering on Brexit: Global Britain and the Embers of Empire’ Conference

Published on by CIGH Exeter2 Comments

The ‘Bordering on Brexit: Global Britain and the Embers of Empire‘ Conference was held last weekend at Garrison Library, Gibraltar. Professor Richard Toye, Director of Exeter’s Centre for Imperial and Global History, interviews Fintan O’Toole (Irish Times) about his conference keynote.

Interview with Prof. Astrid Rasch – ‘Bordering on Brexit: Global Britain and the Embers of Empire’ Conference

Published on by CIGH Exeter2 Comments

The ‘Bordering on Brexit: Global Britain and the Embers of Empire‘ Conference was held last weekend at Garrison Library, Gibraltar. Professor Richard Toye, Director of Exeter’s Centre for Imperial and Global History, interviews Prof. Astrid Rasch (NTNU) about the conference and the ‘Embers of Empire’ project.

Brexit, Food Prices, and History

Published on by CIGH Exeter1 Comment

workhouse

Marc-William Palen
History Department, University of Exeter
Follow on Twitter @MWPalen

In case you missed it,  rumors of the May government’s plan to stockpile food supplies have finally gotten people talking about what Brexit will mean for food prices. As dedicated readers of the Forum know, I’ve been trying to draw attention to this important issue ever since the referendum vote.

Two years ago, I organized and chaired a roundtable, “Brexit and Food Prices: The Legacy of the Hungry Forties,” as part of our Global Economics & History Forum at History & Policy. The panelists were Prof. Anthony Howe (East Anglia); Geoff Tansey (Food Systems Academy); Dr. Lindsay Aqui (Queen Mary); and Prof. Sarah Richardson (Warwick).

Professor Anthony Howe (East Anglia) – The Hungry Forties and the Rise of Free Trade England

Dr Sarah Richardson (Warwick) – Food is a Feminist Issue: the legacy of the hungry forties and women’s rights in England

Dr Lindsay Aqui (Queen Mary) – Butter, Bacon and the British Housewife: Food Prices and the 1975 Referendum

Geoff Tansey (Curator, Food Systems Academy; Chair, Fabian Commission on Food and Poverty) – Food: policy, (in)security, poverty, inequality, power, control & Brexit

You can  listen to the podcast recording of the roundtable below: Continue reading “Brexit, Food Prices, and History” →

Is Theresa May the Next Harold Wilson?

Published on by CIGH Exeter1 Comment

Harold Wilson campaigned for a Yes vote in 1975, despite achieving office on a Eurosceptic manifesto the year before.

Josh Hockley-Still
University of Exeter

The Windrush scandal and the subsequent resignation of yet another Cabinet Minister, Amber Rudd, means that Theresa May’s continued occupancy of No. 10 Downing Street appears ever more insecure. Her political obituary has already been written on multiple occasions, and yet she continues to survive.

Has there ever been a British Prime Minister who has displayed such resilience when their odds of political survival looked so bleak?

Yes. His name is Harold Wilson.

These days Wilson is more commonly compared to David Cameron, as in 2016 when Cameron attempted without success to follow Wilson’s playbook on how to win a European referendum. However, in political style and temperament Wilson has far more in common with May than Cameron.

So what are the similarities between Wilson and May, and what does this mean for British politics? Continue reading “Is Theresa May the Next Harold Wilson?” →

Old Man in A Hurry

Published on by CIGH Exeter

Richard Toye
Director, Centre for Imperial & Global History

Felix Klos, Churchill’s Last Stand: The Struggle to Unite Europe (I.B.Tauris, 2017)

Marco Duranti, The Conservative Human Rights Revolution: European Identity, Transnational Politics, and the Origins of the European Convention (Oxford University Press, 2017)

In the run-up to 2016 Brexit referendum, advocates of staying in the EU made significant efforts to invoke the memory of Winston Churchill. Remainers pointed to the fact that, in Zurich in 1946, he had urged the creation of ‘a kind of United States of Europe’. They seemed to regard him as something of a trump card – if Britain’s iconic wartime leader had been one of the fathers of the EU, who would dare to be against? However, as a persuasive tool, it never quite seemed to work. On the one hand, Leavers could legitimately point out that Churchill had said that Great Britain should be one of the ‘the friends and sponsors of the new Europe’, not one of its actual members. On the other hand, the message was just not quite simple enough; against the ingrained, popular bulldog image, it was tough to sell Churchill as a complex figure who was prepared to make concessions on British sovereignty in the interests of future peace.

It also didn’t help that Churchill’s pro-European campaign took place during a period of his life – the 1945-51 Opposition years – that few members of the public know much about. Popular memory of Churchill focuses to some extent on the 1930s but above all on the war years, and the summer of 1940 in particular. In fact, then, the referendum campaign’s most rhetorically effective invocation of Churchill was made by David Cameron during his appearance on Question Time. He did not attempt to argue that Churchill would have favoured membership of the EU as such, but rather – in response to an audience member who described him (Cameron) as a Twenty First Century Neville Chamberlain – he deployed a more emotionally powerful response:

At my office I sit two yards away from cabinet room where Winston Churchill decided in May to fight on against Hitler. The best and greatest decision perhaps anyone has made in our country. He didn’t want to be alone. He wanted to be fighting with the French, the Poles and the others. But he didn’t quit. He didn’t quit on democracy, he didn’t quit on freedom.

We want to fight for those things today. You can’t win if you’re not in the room.

Moreover, when one actually looks at the details of Churchill’s position on Europe, it’s not clear that he fits neatly into either the Leave or the Remain narrative. The two books under review, both excellent in their different ways, illustrate the point. Continue reading “Old Man in A Hurry” →

The politics of buying British: From the Great Depression to Brexit

Published on by CIGH Exeter5 Comments

Sydney empire shopping week poster, 1928

David Thackeray
University of Exeter

Since the Brexit vote the ‘Anglosphere’ has featured prominently in debates about the UK’s future trade strategy. It may seem odd that the CANZUK countries (Canada, Australia and New Zealand) have featured so prominently in these discussions. After all, combined together these countries accounted for less than four percent of UK exports in 2017. While Brexiteers may talk wistfully of reviving trade with these ‘old friends’, their efforts build on a problematic historical legacy.

In the 1920s and 1930s various efforts were made to encourage consumers to support trade between ‘British’ countries, based on ties of race. This was only one of a range of attempts to promote ethnically-based trade communities. For example, rival Buy Indian and Buy Chinese movements connected diaspora populations across the British Empire. At much the same time, Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association promoted the idea of ‘buying black’, a cause which was subsequently adopted by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the United States.

The practice of running empire shopping weeks was started by the British Women’s Patriotic League in 1923, and subsequently endorsed in the UK by the government-sponsored Empire Marketing Board. Shoppers were encouraged to exercise a voluntary preference for national and imperial goods. The shopping week movement extended into Australia in 1925, and reached Canada and South Africa in 1928. However, the language of empire shopping varied significantly between countries. Within the UK and Australia there was much focus on promoting links across the ‘British’ race at home and overseas. However, the question of the ‘British’ character of empire shopping proved more controversial in Canada, with its large French-speaking Québecois population, and in South Africa, where Afrikaners outnumbered the descendants of British settlers. Continue reading “The politics of buying British: From the Great Depression to Brexit” →

Britain’s imperial ghosts have taken control of Brexit

Published on by CIGH Exeter3 Comments

File 20170620 32369 o08uja

Marc-William Palen
University of Exeter

As long as Theresa May’s Conservative government is representing the UK at the Brexit negotiating table, Britain’s imperial past will continue to haunt its European withdrawal. The ghost that looms largest is none other than the prime minister’s “political hero” and “new lodestar”, Birmingham’s turn-of-the-century imperial protectionist, Joseph Chamberlain.

Like the early 20th century that Chamberlain lived in, the world has witnessed a resurgence of economic nationalism since the 2007 to 2009 recession. Britain, through Brexit, is leading this retreat from economic globalisation. The May government’s proposal to pursue an economic plan of “Britain for the British” after Brexit harkens back to Chamberlain’s bygone imperial age of Tory protectionism. Continue reading “Britain’s imperial ghosts have taken control of Brexit” →

Commonwealth Trade after Brexit: historical reflections

Published on by CIGH Exeter

Update: Due to unforeseen circumstances, this event has been postponed (TBA).

Commonwealth Trade after Brexit: historical reflections

History & Policy‘s Global Economics and History Forum

TBA

Event Details

Based on historical experiences, what economic opportunities might the Commonwealth of Nations offer a post-Brexit Britain?

As the UK seeks a new place in the global economy post-Brexit, the Commonwealth of Nations is often touted as a possible alternative. In a week in which Commonwealth leaders meet the Commonwealth Trade Conference, historians, policy makers and other experts meet to consider the potential of Commonwealth economic relations in historical perspective.

CHAIR: Dr Marc-William Palen, Lecturer, University of Exeter and Co-director, Global Economics and History Forum (History & Policy)

SPEAKERS:

Tim Hewish, Director of Policy & Research, The Royal Commonwealth Society and Co-Founder, Commonwealth Exchange

Dr Surender Munjal, Director, James E. Lynch India and South Asia Business Centre, University of Leeds

Dr Andrew Dilley, Senior Lecturer, University of Aberdeen and Co-director, Global Economics and History Forum (History & Policy)

 

Do you have questions about Commonwealth Trade after Brexit: historical reflections? Contact History & Policy

Update: Due to unforeseen circumstances, this event has been postponed (TBA).

Brexit and food prices: the legacy of the Hungry Forties

Published on by CIGH Exeter2 Comments

Screen Shot 2016-08-11 at 12.28.01 PM

Cross-posted from History & Policy

Places are limited and RSVP is essential. Please book your place here.

Plenty of attention is being paid to the political and constitutional effects of Brexit, but what will its economic impact be on life’s most basic commodities? How did food prices inform the debate in the weeks and months leading up to the referendum, and how have they informed debate in the past? How have the spectres of want and hunger been invoked over the last century and a half in political contexts, and are we paying them enough attention now?

Debating these questions will be five historians and policy makers with combined expertise covering the period since the 1840s, the “Hungry Forties,” which live in political memory as the UK’s last serious sustained period of food poverty. The discussion is aimed at policy makers and practitioners working in the area of food poverty and food security, and aims to show how lessons from the past can inform decision-making today. Continue reading “Brexit and food prices: the legacy of the Hungry Forties” →

Brexit, the American Revolution, and the Problem with ‘Independence Day’

Published on by CIGH Exeter2 Comments

side-by-side-britannia-britains-day-23-june-2016-independence-2923801

Simon Hill
University of Chester

On Thursday 23 June 2016 the British electorate voted 51.9% to 48.1% to leave the European Union (EU). On election night the former leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) Nigel Farage declared this to be Britain’s ‘independence day.’ With ‘independence day’ on pro-Brexit lips, US pundits have been quick to connect 2016 with 1776, the year the Declaration of Independence was signed. The Federalist’s Robert Tracinski, for example, was among the first ‘to welcome the mother country to our revolution.’ And, in a similar act of transatlantic camaraderie, the Republican magazine National Review has accordingly rebranded the 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence as ‘Amerexit.’

Critics have since been quick to point out some of the big historical problems with proclaiming the 23rd June as Britain’s ‘independence day’, including the common association between it and the outbreak of the American Revolution. And of course it’s worth noting that the EU referendum vote and the American Revolution (1775-1783) have obvious differences, not least that in the former the question of independence was settled by the ballot box, whilst in the latter it was decided by the barrel of a gun. Nevertheless, let’s assume for the moment that there are some useful comparisons to be drawn between the American Revolution and Brexit. If so, is 1776 the ideal date for comparison, as many pundits have recently suggested? I would suggest instead that events during the latter years of the American Revolution share far more in common with today. Continue reading “Brexit, the American Revolution, and the Problem with ‘Independence Day’” →