Global England- Global Britain?
That's Southampton University. I'm John Denham and I'm the director of the center. Today we're going to look at whether and how England voters may influence the UK's foreign policy. England is of course the largest part of the United Kingdom, so it's always going to have a heavy influence, but there's more to it than that. In the Brexit decision, the most far reaching change in our foreign policy since the decision to join the EU. The most the contested worldviews of English voters played a major part. Those who emphasized their English identity voted heavily leave, and British identifiers voted largely for remain. And tonight, our speakers, Professor Surgam, future Tich from Ottawa University and Tim Oliver from Loughborough. We'll discuss, discuss whether similarly contested views about the UK's place in. The world could influence future foreign policy, and by the way, at this point I want to apologize for those who are also hoping to hear Helene von Bismarck, Helene had to drop out for family reasons, but we will miss her particular perspective on British foreign policy now, just to let you know what's going to happen to open the discussion, I'm going to present. Some recent polling data commissioned by Southampton and Loughborough Universities. Sir John, who is the author of greatness and decline national identity in British foreign policy, will then follow that up and discuss the formation of foreign policy and Tim, who's the author of understanding Brexit, will respond and suggest areas for further exploration. I've just some housekeeping we are recording. The webinar and it will go up on YouTube in June. The zoom call has a question and answer a Q&A function, so if you would like to pose a question, please use that. I will put your questions later on rather than invite people in individually and you are also welcome to use the chat function. I'll try and monitor that, but I can't promise to pick up questions posted there, so. If you want to have the best chance to getting your question answered, please use the. Q&A function. So with that opening, let me just try and share screen, at which point things usually go wrong. But I'll try and share the screen and go through some of the data that we got back. Really in the last 10 days 10 to 14 days. So we surveyed. 1400 English adults with you Gov.Right?For some reason my. Screen is not moving. Let's turn the pointer off. The first question, so apologies for that. The first question we asked and there are a series of three questions we asked about geopolitical relationships and we asked the respondents to stay between one and five how important the UK relationships were with. As you can see there the USA, the EU, the Commonwealth, Australia, China. And India. In order to analyze the data in a simple way for tonight, we focused on those propositions that were most strongly supported. So the strong most strongly held views and we plotted the proposition by national identity. We plotted it by each national identity by the proposition. We looked at the same data by the Leave remain vote in 2016. And then by the English, not British. And the British, not English groups, to small groups that either end of the Marino scale. So if we look at how that? Worked out for geopolitical relationships. We can see here around the outside the different places with which we have relationships and inside how those fell out by different national identities. So most groups that there's some spread prioritized the USA. But we can see. There's a big divergences between these, the more British more English groups and the more British groups over the importance of relationships with the EU. Relationships with the Commonwealth were broadly clustered together, and even more so with Australia, but some signs of divergent when it comes to the importance of India in China. So when you look at how the the different national identity groups work by the geography 2 things, I think become quite clear. Firstly, it's the more British groups. That prioritized the EU and it's the more English groups that gave lowest priority to the EU and all the different national identity groups gave lower priorities to relationships with China and India than the the other groups. When we look at this by leave and remain, the differences are really quite stark. Here we can see that the Leave group is much more linked towards the Commonwealth and away from the EU and away from China and India. Whether a main group has the more global perspectives on our relationships, there's little difference with the British English group, so I won't. Uh, go onto those. So on the relationships, the greatest divergences on the importance of the relationships with the EU, the English identities lean towards the Anglosphere and away from the EU. The British identities towards the EU and to a lesser extent India and China. The leave remain. Divide gives the sharpest divergences between Anglos ferric. And global broader global relationships and India and China are given less importance by all identity groups. So then once onto defence. Where we get looked at four options and again one to five in terms of closeness to people views. Deploying our armed forces to support democracy and human rights. Liberal interventionism, if you like using our armed forces to support military alliances, only deploying our armed forces where the UK is directly threatened and overseas aid as a better way of promoting the UK's interests and values than military. Some quite stark. Differences in shapes between the lozenges. Here, a big polarization on the value of aid. And quite a big polarization on the importance to deploying our military only to defend ourselves. Some divergences on democracy and alliances, but if we look at the next screen we can see quite clearly it's the English groups that give the greatest support to prioritizing threats to the UK. And the British orientated groups that give the greatest support to or greatest importance to aid. On leave and remain. You can see quite clearly it's even starker, with the remaining groups giving the biggest priority to aid. And the leave group. The biggest priority to threat. That's what I should have said on an earlier slide. Is that all of the groups give the lowest priority to defending human rights and democracy when it comes to the use of our military. So the greatest polarization on aid versus threat, fewer differences on alliances and democracy. All identities, giving less importance to human rights and democracy than other military or aid priority. Leave remain and English British. Follow similar patterns. So to go to the final group of data. We looked at four options for trade and economic policy, reducing trade barriers with the EU. You reducing trade barriers with the rest of the world. Ensuring that our national economy is more resilient against global events and ensuring the prioritizing. Preventing foreign companies owning British businesses and public services. The divergences again. Well, these are quite interesting figures. I think. Firstly there's a real clustering of support and a very high priority for national economic resilience. The bigger differences are how much priority should be attached to reducing EU trade barriers. Less difference when it comes to global trade barriers and some quite strong support for protecting national ownership. If we look at those issues by national identity, you again begin to see that it's the English groups that put somewhat higher priority onto national ownership, and it's the British groups that put the higher priority onto reducing EU trade barriers.Right?When you look at the leave remain groups, you can I think see. Again, that same stark divergance with the Leave group being. More in favor of protecting national ownership, and the, uh, remain group more in favor of reducing EU trade barriers. But again, uh, a lot of convergence around national resilience. So I'm just going to show something that went back wrong with the presentation there, so I'm just going to flick back. So that's where I hope we have got to and you can see on that they're the skewing towards national ownership amongst the leave group and they're skewing towards the importance of reducing EU trade barriers amongst the main group.On your, your screen isn't showing.Oh, so I'm sorry about that. Right, thank you. Thanks for pointing that out, Tim. Never let amateurs do these things themselves, so my the final point there is you could see on the. Hopefully you will see very shortly. On trade, the point that I was making you probably heard me say it several Times Now, is that the leave groups are the ones that prioritize national ownership and the remain voters are the ones that prioritize reducing EU trade barriers. Very high levels of support for national resilience. So just a commentary on this. The highest priority is on national resilience for all identities. British identities lean towards the EU, English identities towards national ownership. As with leave and remain reducing, global trade barriers gets consistent, but lower levels of priority. The leave remain and English British diverge on ownership and EU trade, but not on resilience and global trade. So as a quick summary. Different national identities in England do hold different worldviews. They're matched, and even more strongly by leave and remain voters. That's not a surprise, I think because it was leave and remain that forced peoples worldviews into a binary choice. Not everybody who identified strongly as England voted English voted leave. Not everybody who identified. Strongly as British voted remain, but these are clearly quite polarized worldviews. The more English tend to give lower priority to all international relations prioritize the Anglosphere. Anglosphere have a narrower defence posture, give less importance to aid and want to protect national ownership. The more British Differ in the other direction. There's significant convergence between the national identity groups on the priority for relations with the USA, Australia, and the Commonwealth. All groups give lower importance to India and China. The promotion of democracy and human rights is least important to all groups and national resilience is the most important economic issue. So do contested worldviews. Matter well. 3 possibilities, one if posed. Is a sharp political choice. And this is hard to predict because you have to have political parties that mobilise these groups as well as the groups having different opinions, which of course is what UKIP did successfully in the early years of this century around English euro scepticism. Somewhere in this data, perhaps is the suggestion that around issues of aid the current demands on from Kop for funding for impact and damage. Against the idea of a more narrowly nationalist military outlook, the possibility of long term expensive aid for Ukraine, you can begin to see how a political difference might get mobilised. The second possibility is if these views constrain or support foreign policy. If you look at this data, which is admittedly quite crude, it's difficult to see a huge base of support for sending our only working aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Straits to extend human right to defend human rights and democracy. On the other hand, if the reports are true that Rishi Sunak wants to take. A more skeptical view about Chinese ownership and investment in our economy or infrastructure. There seems to be a large basis of support for that sort of action, and the third area where we have no data here. But it's an interesting one to think about is if these different worldviews clash with other UK nations. Political parties fighting elections in England take it for granted that you have to support a unilateral nuclear deterrent. The SNP has won in Scotland for many years whilst advocating a nuclear free Scotland. So maybe at some point these views in England exacerbate divergences with other UK nations. Well, I hope that's a useful overview of the data, and I'm now going now going to pass the surgeon and ask him to follow with his own slides, which I hope you'll manipulate much more successfully than I did with mine serjan. You are muted, Yep.Hi everyone, sorry, I'll probably have a new share here. Let's see what happens. Alright, do you see the map of your country here alright? Uh, so first of all I'm. I'm very grateful to be here. Big thanks to John and Tim for inviting me. I I want to talk briefly to you first about the findings of this unique survey, and then maybe I'll I'll say. A few words about. Theories of UK foreign policies and how survey research of this kind can be used productively in in scholarship. First of all, I think John Tim should be applauded and be given more funds for this kind of work. Survey research on English views of the UK's role in relation. Ship relationships in the world is important, but curiously understudied, and I find that curious also in relative terms on Thursday here at the University of Ottawa we're hosting a A panel on Scotland in a changing world order with three members of the newly founded Scottish Council on Global. Affairs and and I did a little bit of quick Internet based research to see. Do we have surveyance or non survey research on on Scotland slash Scott? His views and you kept foreign policy. Turns out we we do in Canada which is also multi level multinational state. There's a lot more research on this theme, meaning their surveys showing similarities and differences between Quebec and the rest of Canada between different provinces in the so-called rest of Canada. So I'm actually part of some of. This research production myself two years ago we did a very similar survey looking at that sort of a national sample in 1400. Canadians and very similar questions. So if you have time, maybe we'll get to some cross national comparison here. So yes, I find it curious that. Work with now in in a post Brexit period if you like. And yet there is. There is still a shortage of data on this topic, so by by way of discussion I. Want to turn? To the findings of this of this project, by talking about. There are similarities and differences, mostly similarities with three recent books which I like. Book one is English nationalism, Brexit, and the Anglosphere by Ben Welling. At Book Two is Englishness the political force transforming Britain by Elsa Henderson and Richard Wyn. Jones and Book 3 is my own full of foreign policy book John mentioned earlier, and and I'll, I'll plug plug it shamelessly in this discussion with some apologies so the welling books. So the Welling book makes a a convincing argument that Brexit should not be viewed as an expression of parochial little England ISM, but rather than elite project. That attempted to replace the European Union with trade and security alliances within the so-called Anglosphere. So this this word keeps coming up already and it's a relatively new word. Entered the English Oxford English Dictionary in 2007. Was coined in 1995 so it's a neologism. But but this this idea of a commitment. This thing we call the Anglosphere seems borne out by John, and Tim's data. This is the part where the those more English respondents tend to tend to go in in their imaginations. So what is this thing the Anglosphere? Well, it's a group of. English speaking countries that are said to share some traits and behaviors, values, identities, interests, ideologies, habits. And so on. The maps of the Anglosphere very. This one is from an Italian foreign policy magazine. It gets 2 categories, red states, where English is a is the language of the majority or an official language. And orange, where English is an official language but not the most used used language, so to speak. And there's also a clearly marked something marked as Five Eyes. The name that comes from the. Cold War era. Practice of sharing intelligence. We have secret classification, so Australian Canadian New Zealand, UK, US eyes only Five Eyes, Five Eyes only. These five are often referred. To to refer to as as the Anglosphere core, take this with a grain of salt. Or with quotation marks. The core of that core is the UK US axis or the so-called UKUS special relationship. So when research shows that the English give priority to relations with the USA. Australia and the Commonwealth. This order I, I would argue is very important and I'll perhaps come back. Q&A For now. I want to mention book #2 Englishness by Henderson and Wynn Jones. And and these authors have Co directed the future of England survey since 2011 and the four Nation state of the Union survey since 2018. So they have very large set of very useful data on attitudes to the Union national identity economic. Social solidarity as well as some preferences about foreign policy or foreign policy orientations rather. At one point in the book. They have this metaphor of England in English. This is bruited in. In their analysis, both data and analysis as the high wall keep at the centre of concentric circles of belonging and I'm trying to paraphrase this as closely as I can. Britain is the inner curtain wall. The outer wall is the Anglosphere. Meaning what I just described, core Anglosphere states the states in specifically so old dominions. Plus the US and beyond that Lisa Moat separating those who belong from those who. Do not so I I did a little bit of artwork myself here and. And this is this. Is a, I think a very useful metaphor to think some of this data through or or think about this data. If you if you like. Right now. Something like this is also one of the main findings in a in a decidedly non survey research, so this commitment to the Anglosphere, and metaphorically, you can express in England as a keep you know, surrounded by two sets of work. Plus the Moat. You don't have to read my book. You can actually read an article version that appeared in International affairs earlier this year under the title Elite mass agreement in British foreign policy. The data comes from something called making identity Count Project, which was an attempt to go beyond surveys and studying national identity you can find. More about this on this website, which I'm actually maintaining these days and you can simply Google it. I I'm not going to share with you in the chat. The link to it, but essenti. Really, if you look at the matrix below, it suggests that research or national identity cuts across three. I'm sorry to use the word ontological categories. Objective subjective intersubjective orders on theories of reality as well as between pre theorized versus inductive categories. So empirical categories. So most of us most of the time most of us. With the science most of the time, use surveys and survey experiments and so on. But sometimes if you want to try interpret toward proper interpretive work and in the in I guess UK political. Since many will know the work by Mark Bevier and Rod Rhodes, they did some fantastic work on British government governance from Interpretivist tradition. While there's an interpretive tradition in UK foreign Policy Studies as well, and in this case your typical methodology is either ethnography or discourse analysis, and what we did in this. Project is study the evolution of major power and national identity since 1950. These using inductive discourse analysis and we did so by analyzing leaking mass texts that can be credibly described as high circulating in a given year. So my interest personal interest was and professional interest was it was Britain and Britishness. Or England and Englishness from 1950 to 2000. So my analysis stops in 2000. I I did an update. Uh to 2015. The year before the Brexit vote. But essentially the goal was to to try and capture the so-called overheard conversations in a randomly selected text, but there are nonetheless best selling most viewed, most watched most talked about in a given year, and so this analysis privileged. England, more specifically, London as the dominant site of discursive production of of this thing we call Britain, or more accurately, a polity. Historian David Edgerton calls National UK. Hey, I'm not going to try to convince you that this particular method of reading Britishness is the best thing since Britain won't won the World Cup. But I do want to put it out there as a reminder that mass public opinion can be and perhaps should be studied in more ways than one. So whether this research discover for one thing in the. Early years everyone tended to conflate Britain, meaning England, Wales and Scotland, and even the United Kingdom, meaning Britain plus Northern Ireland with England. And so this became common, so I'm. Talking about both elite texts and mass effects, you know everything from. You know blockbuster movies and and bestselling novels all the way to you. Know speeches given by Prime ministers at their party conferences in a given year, so this became less common after 1970, so think of Scottish devolution river. Referendum and especially after. The actual revolution on their new New Labour next, the idea of global leadership, or whether by trade or diplomacy, was always salient from the athlete years onwards. And there was always an emphasis on hard power among these various, I guess expressions of leadership so that perhaps is a point of of interest to me, because it kind of. Complicates some of my priors about what the English traditionally thought. Again, this really such as historical, not not, not not proposed Brexit, as in the case of Tim and John's work, so also there was a I guess. Commitment or certain imagination that the British self extended to the so-called English speaking world. It comes from Churchill English speaking world and here I definitely there was clarity that it the English speaking world first. First of all the old Commonwealth. Secondly the new Commonwealth. So re. India for example, was rarely a top ten significant category in one of these national identity. He reports for the UK China barely showed up, so this is consistent with with some of the findings and this will actually what what Tim what, what, John and Tim did in in this. In this project, the finding reminded me their findings, reminded me of of that by David Sanders and Jeffrey Edwards in 1994. They. Had a wonderful study based on Elite interviews. So Whitehall, Westminster, Fleet Street, uh, and one of the findings says that generally the elites were more interested in the people, so the former Soviet Union than than the peoples of the new Commonwealth, which is really interesting, right? And and perhaps it's coming back back with Ukraine. The Ukraine effect it's being borne out by by the data, so what's puzzling me here? As I said earlier, is this notion that the English or those who identify as more English. Imagine that Britain needs a narrow defence posture, so I'm not surprised about mass level support to the idea of smaller official development assistance. The UK was always more generous on this file then let's say Canada. I'm also not terribly surprised about, you know the idea of protecting national ownership. But smaller military, let alone a. A military focus on the defense of the Isles, or even just Britain. I I find that strange, but it's interesting it it complicates. Also, some of my understanding what what I think are lexit views of UK foreign policy, which I still think our friends we can maybe talk about that in the Q&A. Uh, yes. To national ownership, yes, to foreign aid reduction and and narrow defense posture, but but what? What does that mean exactly? Giving up Trident? Or, you know, one of the supercarriers? I'm not. Sure, but there's a I think this agreement about this connection to the Anglosphere, and as much as it means you know, the UKUS special relationship. Uhm, so I guess this is a call for more more research on this topic. Now I I think. I have a little bit of time. To talk about. Just theoretically, or what does this sort of research mean for theories of UK foreign policy, and I think it's safe to say that without attending to the question. Of how elites relate to each other, ruling elites to sub elites as well as elites. In general to mass pub. Like we emissive very important sources of state action, and I think this in the UK case means studying the constituent nations very closely, which is exactly what this project project is doing. We should also say that the interactions between elites and masses have changed over time in response. So both institutional changes and shifts in the in the political environment and and these changes help explain why elites frequently don't get what they want even when they have strong preferences. Conversely, what the public wants may well be a function of cultural hegemony, which is, I guess, a concept that I borrowed from British left. Thought and then they borrowed it from Gramsci, but anyway in in the book I kind of talk about that briefly, but but the infrastructure is that elites use domain data to maintain this. This hegemony are very interesting. An interesting topic to study and that it actually includes public opinion research as well and. I don't want to go. So far to say that public opinion is a. You know it creates social phenomena. Maybe I'll say it in the Q&A but but it is. It is affected by one political campaigns to shape public opinion into the existing environment or the distribution of elite attitudes, especially when they're polarized. Or or, depending on the degree of independence in the media. In 2017, this is the 4th book. I'll mention. James Strong at LSE had a had a had a. Uh, voting called public opinion legitimacy, and Tony Blair's war and and and I think we need more more of that sort of work. And so, similarly, if attitudes about politicians dominate political opinion, then position taking or flip flopping may not matter. And we've seen this in the in the US case many times. Right, but I I imagine early the case in the UK under the current government. In short, we know that elites play a key role in providing cues and information to the public, and that's reflected. I guess in the explosion of survey and laboratory experiments of foreign policy, especially in the US context or done by US based scholars. But there are other ways to study the so-called. They lead public gaps and agreements and disagreements and and they may not be as big as we previously thought, which is which is of course, where this type of research comes in and. I'll stop here. And give a chance to tend to expand on further research areas. Thank you.Sir John, thank you, thank you very much indeed. Uh, just before I bring Tim in, UM, could I just remind people? Please do pose questions or use the chat because I I can no doubt keep the web and are going for a bit after our speakers by posing my own questions, but it'd be really nice to be able to take ones that you yourselves have. Put in surgeons, right? There's some. Really interesting things there about how we study these things, but also what the data is saying. And some areas where the data may be a surprise compared with with some of the assumptions we might have made about public views. But I'm going to go to Tim now, but with that encouragement to you all pose some questions in the Q&A at Tim.Thank you John. Can you all hear me? Yep, good excellent. I don't have any PowerPoint, UM, which is unusual. Usually I subject my my audience to lot lots of text, lots of images. So instead you're just going to have to look at me tonight in a in a rather bleak cold London thank you to surgeon. And to to John. But for those for those comments and observations, I'll make my my comments brief. If I'm there for and I'm just. Going to comment on three things first of. All why this is important. And second, some of my own observations about the data that John and I threw you Gov were able to present to you today and one or two little extra insights that I think I'm interesting and open up. Lots of other questions. And then finally some questions about. For further development, where where does this go next? Because clearly this isn't going away. England is not going to disappear as a question. The English question it's going to grow if anything, and I suppose therefore, starting with why this is important, I can't help but think back to the first time that I presented on Brexit. Which I've been working on for almost a decade now. Long before the referendum was called. Now I'm I I won a chance to present on what Brexit would mean for the European Union. This is where I started. I was working in Berlin back in 2012 when David Cameron committed to an EU referendum and I presented on what the British exit for the EU, a British exit. In the you could mean for the EU and at the end of my discussions all they wanted to discuss was Scotland. And I kind of sign as OK. Yes, we can discuss Scottish independence as a result of the British exit and so forth, but I then push back saying what about England? Are you going to talk about England here in terms of what it means for England to leave the European Union? England still to be outside the EU. England doesn't pick itself up and move off to the South China. Zero off the East Coast. Of the United States, it's still. Maybe there. And in reply my discussants carried on discussing Scotland because they were more comfortable. They knew more about Scotland, England was this big unknown. They knew it mattered, but how to breakdown England? How to understand England without talking about the UK was something they didn't really kind of have much of a grip on. Now that is improved. Things have changed. Over the last 10 years, people are certainly more aware of what England means, but I still think there's a big gap not only in our understanding within the UK of England, but also outside the UK. I don't think it would come as a surprise to anybody on the call who is from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to be frustrated when they travel abroad and they're told, oh, you come from England. No, I come from Scotland, but you know, OK, fine, you think England and the UK are the same and there's still that conflation much strongly outside the UK than even within England. Uhm, as surgeon pointed out, there is also the tension about elite views here versus in a more popular views. And to what extent popular views actually work their way through to actually engaging elite views? To what extent popular views show? Shape the way that decisions are made and whether or not that matters whether the elite and their views and the narratives that they hold. Actually, they're more important things rather than studying public opinion, but OK to some extent. Maybe the English have always thought like this. The one thing that we don't have and this is something we'll come back to a little later, is that we don't really have a lot of. Data going back. Decades on this, it's something that Henderson and when Jones point out that really until 20 years ago, pollsters weren't really breaking it down by England, Scotland, and so forth. So we've got a dart of data here. Uhm, so this is going to continue to grow. We're going to have more and more data on England hopefully, but political science still tends to think more that UK, or at least I should be more. I should add a caveat there. It's more GB. Northern Ireland is often one of the first rules of British politics is Northern Ireland is very strange and we don't think about Northern Ireland. We leave it. Over there and even you Gov who the polling was done through UM don't poll in Northern Ireland. They focus on GB of England, Wales and Scotland. So there's a question here about the time frame, about elite views, about the relevance of this. And I'm glad also that John and I decided that we include questions about the economy and economic openness issues to do with globalization. UM, because foreign policy. Sometimes I find as somebody who crosses the IR politics divide in. In academia I get frustrated sometimes when people in IR talk about. Foreign policy if it is. If it's defence policy of its political positioning versus kind of China or Russia or Japan and so forth, and they overlook the international political economy. Which is incredibly important, especially when it comes to Brexit. Brexit is about what type of political economy the UK wants, and we've not settled on that the last few weeks when the polling was conducted, it must be said have been a rather topsy turvy period for British political economy. Given Liz Truss is failure. With the with her chancellor to try and create. From some people's perspective, as Singapore on Thames type economic model for the UK, and as we've seen that created a backlash which our polling doesn't really kind of. Uh, well, kind of. Uh shows why this was going to happen. Was that, uh backlash you should be protecting the country. You shouldn't be opening up to quite the same extent that maybe the Liz Truss agenda of a more factual, open, deregulated, low tax Singapore on Thames economy would have pointed towards. So let me just quickly move on, just very briefly about one or two little observations about of my own about the data. Uhm, as John and a surgeon have both pointed out, this is about England that we've got data. We don't have data about. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. That is one of the gaps, and that's something that John and I hope to develop in future, and I know others would like to look at in all the in order to understand. OK, what are actually Scottish views on the Anglosphere? For example, compared to? English views, are they actually that different? But if you look the data we have does provide one important little breakdown geographically. We've looked at England. And the data provides a breakdown of the North Midlands, the South and of course London. And now I don't want to dig too much into this because the numbers are quite low, but I don't think it comes as a surprise that on some issues the one bit of England that stands out is of course London. We know that London voted remain. There's a majority versus Scott versus the rest of England, and you can see little differences of how people in London in this survey responded. First of all, it's not surprising. Uhm, that they might not have aligned with. English views, given that the proportion of people in London who had identified as we just find it other or non when it came to identity was 22%. So you've got a fat just over 1/5 of the people surveyed in London who didn't even want to identify as English British more British than English and so forth. So you've got this. Big chunk of people in love. And and the home of the metropolitan elite, should we say to use a term that's often banded around? Who holds slightly different opinions to those that you find elsewhere in England? And but again, you found views even in. Therefore in London that weren't actually that different to elsewhere. Londoners aren't that different in their views of. The United States to also wear anywhere else in. In England they have lower views apart according to this data of the Commonwealth, so less supportive. Of the Commonwealth. But much more supportive of the European Union, much more supportive of international aid. Not that much difference when it comes to economic policy with the rest of England, except when it comes to foreign ownership of companies. They're kind of. There's a bit of an ambivalence. See, actually, they're more open to the. Foreign ownership of companies in the. UK than elsewhere in. In England, so perhaps here you've got a hint here as to what we might find with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that London is a. Bit of a a bit of a a pointer. In terms of. You are going to find some differences, but not some big differences apart from Brexit, which is still the dividing issue. Still overhangs British politics? Whether it's in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, and also the data also points to that other issue that divides British politics. There's often defined British politics for so long, which is not necessarily regional identity or religion, it's. Harris and if you look in the data, you find that the ABC, the kind of the managers that upper middle class and so forth. They tended to be much more pro European than the lower kind of classes, manual laborers and so forth. He tended to be a bit more leaning towards the Commonwealth and Australia and so. Forth, but even. There you find a lot of similar views about China. Or India and so forth. So where does this go? Where do we go next in terms of? Questions well first of. All the big question is how does this compare to England? How does England, Scotland, Wales? And Northern Ireland compare. Also how? What actual relevance did this have? A certain point touched on to actually how policymaking is made. The UK state remains very majoritarian, very unitary, very functional. It tends not to be very geographically oriented, especially within Whitehall and central British government. Are we going to see a change in that over the next 10 years? Depending upon constitutional changes, whether it's a. Be formed House of Lords that suddenly has a regional identity to it or some form of movement towards further federalism towards Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or and this is what I want to leave us on. What happens if we do start to see the breakup of the United Kingdom? If Scotland leaves? If Irish reunification happens? And we're left with an England and Wales that have potentially England re emerging. You know in question Mark from the UK, what are we going to have? What type of country we're going to be left with here? Is this going to be the successor state? The literature in IR on successor states often points to Russia as the example.But even Russia.It isn't necessarily a good example, because what happened in the early 1990s happened as a big collapse, and that's not necessarily going to happen in the UK's case. It might be quite progressive and slow, it's gonna be positive it's gonna come through Democratic votes and so forth. There's not going to be any fighting. At least we hope there's not going to be any fighting, so perhaps actually what happens with the evolution of the UK? In breaking up in England, Re emerging might actually be not quite in the same way as other successor states have emerged in the past, but there are still going to be quite bitter debates about. That's about the BBC about defence policy about Trident. About even the English support for an independent Scotland joining the EU or NATO. Will England make life difficult? I think Henderson and Wyn Jones found some evidence in their polling that suggested that if Scotland leaves, the English become quite. Quite difficult in terms of negotiating with, or. At least there's support for a difficult relationship with Scotland. To save multa, you're gonna have to. We're gonna have to take a hard line here with you, and I'm reminded there for going back to where I started on Brexit, uhm? There's been a lot of discussion about. How to compare the UK's exit from the EU with a potential Scottish exit from the from the United Kingdom? Uhm, well OK, but does that hint to? Also the fact that England like the European Union will take a very hard line in terms of. Well, we're the bigger party here versus Scotland. You're going to have to play ball with us. England is actually going to have a bit of a kind of a a much more forthright approach, just like the European Union did to some extent, but even there. The dynamics will be slightly different depending on what the Scottish want to do. For example with regard to EU membership and whether they've got the EU. Line and therefore pressuring on England, but if that happens, how are the English going to react? Does this create a more stronger backlash in England as if here's the Scots? Here's the Irish. Here's the European Union ganging up on the English. Are we actually going to see an even stronger backlash by some who identify more as strongly English? And where does that leave more progressive? More pro European views in England. Visit the England place, therefore with relations to Scotland, Ireland and the European Union, and I'll stop there. Thank you very much.Good questions that for further discussion for further exploration, I'm going to go straight now to to some of the questions that have been put in and then pass throw some other things into discussion and please encourage other people to put in questions. Can we go to one first from Max Dixon? Which I just realize it is 'cause it's very clear. UM, Liz trusts briefly pushed for a considerable change to the UK foreign policy approach to China, including officially declaring China as a quote threat. Uhm, Max says it's unclear if Rishi Sunak will uphold this, but surgeon Tim, do you think from the data we've got here or your broader knowledge there is public support for a more hawkish China policy and the potential trade implications? This policy may have? Sir John, can I go to you first? You mute it, that's it.Yes, thank you. It's a great question. It's a. Question that all. So-called liberal Western democracies are debating right now. I mean, in Canada we have a similar similar doctrine being advanced by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who's been advocating for more French shoring as she. As she put it, uh, and and sort of a common front of democracies against the threat of. I, I think first of all with the word threat of Chinese threat or the threat of China. So the NATO strategic concept from 2022 does not go so far to name China as a threat. It's very clear in Russia calling Russia and its invasion or re invasion of Ukraine a threat to NATO and. And the values that NATO says it. Stands for, but China is is is seen as a competitor as a concern and not quite a threat. So strength is the kind of diplomatic language you use in on special occasions. Now the question here is about the Publix and and and and the and the trust attempt. To configure China as threatening to the UK and its allies, I think is is one option that various governments. Across the western. World have these days, but I also see. A tremendous idea. Turn on the opinions of China at the at the level of public opinion polls if. You look at. Say, let's say Pew Research, which is probably the gold standard because they've been doing this for since 2000 or something. You see that. UH-2000, well essentially the a more aggressive China under Xi Jinping. So 2013, fourteen and then ESP. Actually, in the COVID era, has correlated with more negative views across the board everywhere, including in Asia, but also in places like the UK and Canada. Now the big question is what does that mean? What what do governments or ruling elites are going to do with that information? Right, we know that China is not. As popular in our imagine. Patients as it used to be or or not not popular, but we're less tolerant of the idea that there there is this competing system out there and.So what do we?What do we do with our policymakers? Well, one option I think that's been maybe 100 hundred and 20 years old has always been to create a concept of democracies. And to divide the world into the democratic and authoritarian camps and create some sort of a new Cold War. And I think that's been gaining. Gaining ground lately? UK diplomacy has been at the forefront. So, uh, in in in putting this idea forward under the term D10 democratic 10 democracies? But even before. That at the Toronto Summit of G. 8 So we're talking about way earlier. Canadian diplomats have been advancing this idea as well. I, I think it's not yet gone completely mainstream, because so much depends on what's going to happen. In the US elections as of this week, within 24 hours as and again in 2024 because the US takes the lead on these things and many of its allies follow one way or. But I I think I think the trust views, even if let's say the sooner government decides to tone down some of this rhetoric. This option is here to stay and and this policy option will be constantly debated and visited and revisited in in every every Western government. From you know, from the. Immediate neighbors of China to to those that are, I guess, furthest away geographically.Thanks, thank you Tim.Uhm thanks John uhm. I suppose I've just got two quick observations first. The one thing which we didn't poll on in in this ask about in this opinion, polling was immigration and one of the the. Biggest changes, immigration policy or biggest group of immigrants over the last 10 years that has. I don't want to sound go unnoticed, but of course is. The issue of Hong Kong. Uhm, and we don't I I can't think of any data I'm sure. It must exist. Uhm, that if you ask people in England or in the UK, UK wide about their views of immigrants, what their views of immigrants from Hong Kong and the situation in Hong Kong is versus views of immigrants from Albania to pick a pick, a controversial issue at the moment. So there's one area which we might dig into further in future in terms of. Use of China versus Hong Kong, for example. There's maybe attention and we can. You can tease out there. But then the second issue, I suppose, is the issue of the Anglosphere in the Commonwealth, which is, as we've seen, there are some tensions in English views or British views in England. Sorry about relations with the Commonwealth of Australia and so forth. Countries for whom the issue of China? Is a much more immediate direct issue than it is for the United Kingdom. Uhm, so it would be interesting, yeah, supposing further polling to dig into that views of those positive views of the Commonwealth about how. Far those views. Go for example are those who are in favor of closer links with the Commonwealth. Very supportive of the UK or England becoming supportive of Australia or Malaysia or Singapore in some form of tensions with China actually how far they prepared to allow this to go? Uhm, so I'm kind of I'm throwing here out. More questions than answers, but I suppose there are ways you could dig into this that the data points to in terms of tensions over the Commonwealth and the immigration question, which we've not really covered that much yet. Thanks so much.Thanks Tim, just a couple of points on the survey. Obviously this is. This is really an exploratory exercise to see. Is there something here that's worth looking at in more detail and that that obviously meant that lots of things we don't necessarily know what people had in mind when they looked at the question, so it's quite striking, for example, that there's much higher priority given to relations. With the Commonwealth. Than there is with India which is the largest member of the Commonwealth which implies and I think we're reading it to mean that this probably means a white view of the white Commonwealth or largely white Commonwealth as opposed to the whole of the Commonwealth. We don't actually know that on the basis of this, and I think it's similar with the immigration issue where we know that. Polls are completely contradictory. That public worries about immigration overall are at their lowest levels for many, many years and way down from Brexit. On the other hand, on the specific issue of small boats crossing the channel, public concerns are very high and you have to ask, is that really about? Immigration, or is it about the promise of taking back control and the obvious sense that if you've got small boats you haven't taken back control so there are lots of things to dig into further? And what I'd like to do now, and I'm going to come to you on this one. Tim is run together. Questions from Kayla Walker and Simon Eden. Simon asked really about whether the distinctions between. London and the rest of England are about the nature of London as an international city. Or is it really part of the sort of city rural small town divide that we see in lots of other? Areas and our list questions takes it a bit further and says. May is it the case that if there was real devolution within England, so that different parts of England, the major city regions, or whatever structure you had spoke more independently? Uhm, maybe there would be a a broader range of views within England would emerge. So Tim, can I ask for your thoughts on that?Yes, uhm. Yes, there is certainly uhm, that city. I don't want to say city Wall because actually the the number of people who live in actually warmer. Areas is very small I suppose. Kind of big city versus smaller town or kind of smaller city kind of tensions. We don't have enough data here because it only gives us London and then the north and the South and so forth. But yeah, that you can certainly find that you can certainly see it in cities like Manchester or or or Birmingham or Liverpool and so forth. And so there is that tension. It's not just London, but London is the biggest one, and I often think one of the ways in which I like to think about London is we we have to move away from thinking of London as like a city and view it as a region. It's almost a very distinct. Political space it's not like Manchester. It's just much much bigger and if we start thinking about it in terms of being a city, it kind of it disrupts our way of analyzing Manchester and Liverpool and so forth because the shift, slight difference in size makes it very different. Difficult to compare the two, but yes, there is certainly that city. Big International City tension versus everywhere else, although that can be overplayed sometimes, especially given the the. Well, let me go on to the second issue about. If we had more political devolution within England, would that have led to differences in views? And yes, I think you can certainly point to that. Uhm, I think Henderson and Wynn Jones point touch on the fact that people in England who identify as English don't feel like they have enough control. Over or they feel like they're not in control of the United Kingdom or in England or the their their futures, and so forth. And if you think about London, it has a mayor. It's the concentration of the British political system. It has lots of boroughs that are the size of of, sometimes whole cities. It has most of the diplomatic representation people in London. You could say probably do feel like they have a bigger saying even if actually. Uhm, there are tensions in London about not feeling like they do have an upset, but there's certainly more political representation in London. It can sometimes be a devolution settlement that doesn't speak its name, even though the mayor is not a devolved government. It would have been interesting if there had been a NE assembly, whether or not we would have seen any difference by now, but we don't have that situation yet. Could we break this down in terms of metropolitan boroughs versus, UM? Kind of smaller councils across across England. Again, we'd need more. Data, but I can certainly see why people in London might feel like they've got more power or bigger, say on things, and why that, even if it's not true, there's a certain narrative that they have more power and that they have a bigger control over the future of their their, the, the UK or of London and so forth compared to everyone else. So yes, that can certainly be a factor.Thanks thanks Tim. I I'm going to pick up one. I think directly on the data from Kieran Miko who asks do you see from the responses if the UK might be closer to rejoining the EU? If the question was posed? I'm going to say from from our data I I don't think you can. You can do. You can draw that conclusion. Uhm, then the other national opinion polling suggests there's been quite a significant shift in the number of people who think it was a mistake to. Leave what I think the data does show is that whatever the numerical. Weight of them. The divides haven't gone away. That those people who voted to leave. Not only think that the EU as a geopolitical entity is a much lower priority for the United Kingdom than the people who voted. Remain and nor do they particularly prioritize reducing trade barriers, which is the thing you might have thought of, would be the the pragmatic thing you could do even if you were pleased to be outside the EU. So the the the overall numbers may have changed, but there's still that very polarized view between the leave and the remain camps. About how important the EU is to us in the bigger scheme of things, surgeon Tim. I don't know if you want to add anything on that point.Can I just? Make one brief comment. I reviewed the proposal the other day from somebody who's was writing on how could the UK rejoin the European? In Union and part of it part of this paper was about the political changes that would need to take place, and they had not considered, and it struck, struck me as a real big oversight. Still, there was no idea of having some form of England stronger in Europe campaign. It was still Britain stronger in Europe. The idea of talking about England in Europe was still not there. Even from someone all these years after the referendum, still not wanting to talk about England in Europe and wanting to avoid that and to talk about Britain and I immediately flagged this up to them and they've gone away to think about it, but they haven't thought about that is telling.I so much agree here with both both both. Both of you said, uh, in my book I was. I was interested in in non global foreign policy options and so I looked at a variety of positions by British prime ministers thrown at Lee to Blair off those only really one. Came close to offering something of an alternative, so this was Ted Heath Pretore Prime Minister, best known for working class origins, idiosyncratic views and and declaring 5. Record 5 states of emergency and the other person was Harry Perkins, the fictional protagonist of a novel called the Very British Coupe 1982 by the now retired Labor left politician Chris Mullin, and so as it turns out, Chris Mullin has a as a sequel. Sort of a second book called the Friends of Harry Perkins and the answer in that book on on the kind of. Reversal Brexit reversal. Is a maybe it was published in 2019 and basically picks up the original plot. Takes us into the post Brexit 2000 and. Chinese, the UK, is grappling with countless problems. America is sending a fleet to fight China. Germany is ready with India support, ready to take on the UK's United Nations Security Council. See I mean all kinds of things are happening and with the economy going from bad to worse. Uh, there is a a kind of a grassroots attempt of the British voter. He never says English voters, but British voters are beginning to look for new options, one of which is a is a Brexit reversal. But but yeah, I mean it, it's it, it seems. So far fetched on so that's on so many levels that I think it really belongs to a political fiction at. At this point, but. I I've been wrong on Brexit before. So I'll stop there.Thank you so much, just. Just to pick up a couple of quick other data points, Michael Haycraft asks about non voters and the the truth is it on this sort of? Fairly sure it's a low budget you Gov survey. We aren't really able to do the sort of allowance for non voting that you Gov would do if they were trying to predict the result of the next general election. We do know that a significant number of people who never normally voted came out and voted in the EU election a EU referendum. And I believe that is also true of some of those for voting for the get Brexit done Conservative Party in 2019. So the answer is some of these issues have the ability to mobilise voters that others don't, but I we don't directly answer your quest. And an anonymous person said, what can we draw about England global position on climate change? The answer, which academics will always say This is why we need more. Research because we we would. Love to be able to extend this type of inquiry into issues around climate change, mass migration and other issues that. Nuclear security and so on and other issues that Tim raise. So thank you for those. As such, I get and Tim I want to come back. One question that struck me when I looked at the. Data was. I may be reading too much in it. Are there reasons to look at this and wonder how strong or how fragile the Pro Ukraine coalition is in this country at the moment, which is in terms of elite foreign policy, is absolutely unquestioned across the political spectrum. But I just wondered if you look at the focus on. National Defence the relative low priority amongst all identity groups too. Through military force being used to protect human rights and democracy, although of course some people might rightly perceive Russia as a threat to our own security if nothing happens in Ukraine. But I wondered whether there's any reason here to think that the Ukraine coalition is not as strong as some of us might want it to be.Sure, uh, so I I think I think yes, I, I think you may be reading too much into the data because I I think these are the kind of questions that require a lot more surveys. Maybe in a in a survey experimental setting, but it's a really good one and I think. We should all ask it because. The the so-called as you call it the Pro Ukraine coalition. Is fighting a political battle at a time when there's so many structural problems across western economies, the energy crisis, runaway inflation, housing and cost of living crisis, right? Raising right rising interest rates, rise of food banks across everywhere crumbling infrastructure and. So on so. So that there are. I mean, we all you would need to do is I simply look at what I guess the right wing of the. Very right wing Republican Party in the USA, England, Ukraine and and someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who's Amaga Republican Park salons. Just I think yesterday said not a penny more will go to Ukraine if. And when we win. And you have perhaps not a strong articulation. Of this position elsewhere in Europe that the continental Europe, I should say that that that may be more pronounced than in the UK and Canada, but. But but it's. There right under the surface and it might come back because. Economies, stagnant economies and also social fragmentation and political polarization that now characterizes all of our countries. So yeah, the winter will be a long one and what comes after I think will be will be a a slightly if not very different conversation on Ukraine.I suppose the first thing to to remind everyone is that. Not sure how much the public are aware of this. To be fair, the UK hands being in a joyous stay a state of conflict with Russia for quite a while if not necessarily direct conflict. Uhm, which we've got closer to for Ukraine, especially given the attacks that have taken place in the UK on Russian dissidents and so forth, so. This isn't a situation that has certainly been. Sprung on the UK. It's one reason why I was asked a while ago. If Boris Johnson or not being Prime Minister, do you think the UK would have taken such a forthright approach to Ukraine? And yes, I think it would, partly because the British military and intelligence services were already fully fully committed to this. Uhm, so it doesn't come as a surprise that Britain has been very much at the forefront here because the core of the special relationship, let's not forget is about intelligence, nuclear weapons, and special. Forces, and that's very much a focus with regard to right now the UKUS and Russia relations. But the second thing I think here it comes down to what political force in the UK would mobile be mobilized? Or find political gain in opposing the war in Ukraine at the moment because the war has created tensions with both left and right, the people on the left who are usual criticisms of kind of British or American imperialism suddenly find themselves having to attack well Russian imperialism. So it's caused dilemmas there. So it's it's a case of how do you. Oppose this war. Allowing Russian imperialism, but on the right as well. This idea of of suddenly turning against NATO turning against Britain commitment and a kind of a strong commitment against to to democracy and human rights and the free market and so forth. It's not clear where on the right this this political purchase would be either. You could see, maybe. Nigel Farage making some. Play on this, but again, it would be very difficult for them to find a way, and I think the issue in the United States is the US politics is so polarized over this that I don't know what conflict it would be other than maybe with regard to China where this would actually become a big dividing issue. And I don't think we've right. We've reached that point in the UK yet. It may become an issue. Perhaps with regard to even actually, no. I I was about to say on on the Scottish independence recommended, but even there, perhaps if we had the polling and the Scots are not exactly opposed to supporting this country, that seems to be impressed by this larger neighbouring country and so forth. There's actually a general. It generates a degree. Of sympathy there. Uhm, so again I I can't see the political game for someone in the UK at the moment who could? Make a breakthrough to push it. Yes, and I think that's where these elite views come into play that there's no nobody who could really cash in on this at the moment. It's it's. It's not. Clear to me who that would be.Sergeant let me come back to you and pose a question that's implied by what Tim said, which is about the relationship between electoral politics and what the major parties and elites do. Because I suppose one response to Tim would be yeah, nobody thought UKIP was serious when they started. But actually they managed to go from the points at which they could be a a niche with sufficient support. Firstly, to persuade a major political party to concede a referendum and then to turn what was a pro European party into a Europe Euroskeptic party in order to take advantage of it. Come from the work that you've done, not just on on Britain but elsewhere. I mean, do you have any thoughts about how these dynamics play out in electoral systems? So that provided there sufficient space for somebody to to create some sort of electoral impact, they can go further to reshape elite politics as well.This is a.Really good question. I mean, we know that fringe ideas can go mainstream really fast. I mean no one, even even something like the Anglosphere was was traditionally associated with essentially. Fringe conservative foreign policy visions in the UK, but not just in the UK. I mean in, in, in. In other core Anglosphere countries as well. So most most most people who studied it would say, well, it was essentially steeped in images of some kind of nostalgic Englishness where we are the Buccaneer entrepreneurial peoples of a world island, right seafaring nation, committed to finding partners. Who think just like us. So how did this happen? Well, I mean it happens in the moments of political crisis and other types of crisis which we identified earlier. We've been going through a period where all of the nostrums are being questioned in all of the countries that were once united under this banner, or let's say. Let's call it. Liberalism, but this. This liberalism is no longer hegemonic, so you asked me to kind of go beyond the UK concept. It remains the default. Position of mainstream politics, but there's no longer majority support, and why? Because the adoption of social, cultural, and economic liberalism has gone. Uh, it has gone from, you know, coalitions between working class and middle class people as before to something completely different. Maybe something concentrated in, you know, the so-called managerial liberal elite. And I'm using. I know I'm using here the right wing language, but there's simply no, no way of of. Expressing some of the points I. Want to make so So what what? What what what you what you see? Entrepreneurs such as Farage in the UK but countless others elsewhere they they see there's a popular revolt against what's called the liberal elites and and I understand what what the ironies here are, but it opens up space what for? For context, political contestation a scale that we've not seen before, and it's and you have a lot of competitors to this liberal default position. Of the Anglosphere, as a concept came from what we might call 1 Nation conservatives, mostly in, you know, Home Counties, London plus places in Australia. Plus in Ottawa plus in Washington, DC. Maybe a few people in New Zealand as well, and they thought, OK, well, you know we have so much in common. In security, perhaps we should have more things in common in. Other areas you know, free trade mobility defends at some point as well, so that's one way ship right? But then we have other ideological competitors to liberals, and we have the radical right. Who's talking points. I was essentially conveying earlier and their idea is, you know, right wing internationalism, so think. Of these, this is again coming from American politics, CPAC international, taking place in Budapest, Hungary. You know, going across Asia, coming to Mexico and the Philippines and and you know that maybe it'll come to the UK in. The coming years. And there you have this vision of OK, well, you know we need to play by our rules. Because the Liberals have have changed the rules so much that we no. Longer recognize our politics in our countries. So that's the. Right wing internationalism. I have a project on this with colleagues at at Ottawa and at Queen Mary. It's called global, right? You can look it up globalright.ca. What are their visions for international? Politics completely different from what we are used to. Fringe stuff that's now becoming more and more. Mainstream and on the left and then I mentioned Lex Iters earlier. There there is a foreign vision associated with that. I mean it is something between some kind of you know old social democracy which may no longer be possible under the conditions of the rates of profits and so on. But you know, so some of the some of the residual thought on. What what, what Britain or England should look like? It's clearly spelled out in some of the these writings. They're not in mainstream newspapers, but their online can be accessed these very easily and then on top of this you know you have some, some some some other positions associated with left. I think Tim mentioned them earlier and and and quite well. And I agree with that. In his assessment, so I won't. I'll stop here. Sorry if this was not exactly the direct answer.Oh no, that's very useful.To your question.I'm just going to make a particular point about elites when we talk about elites here, because on other work that I've done, which is not to do with foreign. See, we've looked at the national identity's and views on domestic issues like the Union amongst the elites in England and what we find is that amongst the civil service, the media cultural influences in the arts, culture, drama and so on and in the voluntary sector they're heavily dominated by people who are. British rather than English or British more than English, so the elites actually do in a very serious sense of the word reflect only one part of the pattern of identity you've got here, so. While we're looking at these divisions of opinion in England, you can reasonably say there is a whole chunk of people who are not equally well represented in the cultural and political decision making of of the country. I'm I'm going to draw to an end soon, but I'd just like to read out something if I can. Which I haven't had the chance to to. Read properly, but I, but I think it's good for Mary to jet ski in in our Q&A, which I think will be of general interest. She says, I think there is a split between elites and other opinion on Ukraine. I do quite a few debates and argue that it's quote time to stop the war and talk about peace. There is what seems to be a noticeable division in the audience. When I write, usually challenging the elite consensus that we must make sacrifices so that Ukraine. Can be helped to win the bigger battle, suggesting the UK and other leaders are ignoring the interests of their own people. It's the same if you probe. There is also some indignation that the public haven't been asked whether they approve of the UK sending weapons and essentially being in a war that isn't really much to do with quote. Us, I just think that's an interesting observation, and I'll probably end if I may on that particular point, for you both to come back on. I mean, I can remember surgeon uses. Suggest yourself some surprise at the sort of narrow defence posture of quite a lot of the audience, but I couldn't quote it to you now, but I've certainly seen some ethnographic work in which voters in England very often talk about military involvement as not wanting to get involved in things that might go too far. Or that aren't our our our fights sort of thing, so I wondered Tim and Mary if you could just. Do you think Mary is actually onto something here when she's talking about public attitudes? Slightly different to whether they're being mobilized, but whether that public reticence isn't a real thing that we should take some account of surgeon, and then any further comments you've got, and then I'll go to Tim to. To close up.I'll briefly put I mean this, this this is excellent I, I think that kind of. Really confirms one of my earlier point to be true, which is that we need more methodologically rich work on this very question. I, I think that's that's exactly right. Once you start having focus groups and ethnographies and you you get, you get things that you could often quite easily miss through survey research. So the kind of research that I did in this book, which is you know, very kind of. High level discourse analysis of relatively few texts, but you know it's there's a similarity here with with with with what Canadians think they they think that you know diplomacy should be all that we're doing and and and this is strange because we need to think about institutions. As well, the current budget of our Global affairs department. You know, less than a billion compared to the resources invested in either foreign aid, which is 5 billion or National Defence, which is something like 22 billion. And so we we have to look at how some of this infrastructure is translated into foreign policy. So although allocation is imperfect, indicator of government priorities, there seems to be. Some support at the mass level that you know we should increase resources to other things. National ownership, their economy, maybe narrow understanding of defence. Also, you know diplomacy, which in the minds of the respondent to these questions usually means. Peace, but there's no necessary condition there that you know that would lead to peace. Yeah, sorry I will again yeah.No, that's very good, that's very. Good thank you and Tim.Uhm, I suppose there's three things. First of all, UM, this isn't this is something surgeon has touched on, which is to what extent is the reaction in England in talking about their John and Mary's talking about actually unique to England? Or the UK? What extent you find it in France, in Canada, in Denmark, and so forth? So there's always been there is always that. Tension of why should we get involved in the? This conflict far away and what's it got to do with us? And I, I suppose, leads on to the second point for me, especially about the way that UK politics works and which I didn't. I don't see any change coming with regard to England. If the UK would have. Break up, which is that. British slash English decision making is still extremely centralized. Especially on foreign policy that the foreign policy community in the UK is tiny. It's very small. It is located in zone one of London. It is very dumb. It's filled with incredible, incredibly smart people and so forth. But it's very small. It's very limited and there's no need under the British Constitution. It's a crown prerogative. It belongs to the government, it's. Let's see the diplomatic powers of the British government powers through the through the monarch to consult widely. This is something James Strong, who Sir John mentioned earlier, has done a lot of work on at Queen Mary about the role of Parliament in this. And I can't see that changing anytime soon and nor and I think this is an important issue. If you go back to Henderson and Win Jones work, there's no support amongst people who identify strongly as English for any major constitutional changes in the UK. It's this very strange setup. We're not happy with the way the UK is. Going the direction, we don't want to see any radical changes to the way England is governed. Well, OK, but that includes foreign policy then, so there's no support. Bizarrely, sometimes amongst people who support strongly English for any radical overhaul of the constitutional system and the oversight of foreign policy decisions. I think and, and I suppose the final issue I I'd end on here is going back to something we've touched on, which is, well, OK, how different are the views in England compared to, say those in Scotland to take the most obvious example are the Scots just as uneasy about the attitude towards the conflict in Ukraine. Would people who vote Scottish? National Party and one independent Scotland. Would they also hold the same view or do they? Or are they different? And what similarities or differences might we find on something like Ukraine is? This a British view in English viewers. Choose the Scots. Much more isolationist, and then maybe even the English, maybe in. Future thanks John.Thank you very much indeed and thank you both and I that's a lovely point to say to people who are still on the call. That's why we have the Centre for English identity and politics because there are there are nations and maybe France perhaps is 1 where there can be a debate about what it means to be French, the maybe perhaps unique thing in England is the extent to. Which our views. About what our nation is. Actually tend very often to map onto which national identity we prioritize, and which emphasis we give we we give to it, and that's why exploring the the differences between the national identities in England, whether people to lean towards their Englishness their Britishness or mix them both, actually does shed a light on the sort of issues that we've been talking about. This evening and thank you for joining us everybody. Apologies to one or two people whose questions I I wasn't able to take, although I think we probably touched on a lot of the questions you were you were raising in the other answers. Uhm, I hope so. You will join us for our next event on December the 12th, also at 6:00 o'clock, when we'll be discussing a very different question, but asking whether we can really have an English countryside for all and our speakers will be Tabatha Baker, Kavita Maya and Kate Suede. So until then, and with thanks again to our speakers. Good evening.Thank you, thank you, John. Thank you thanks thanks everyone.