Breaking Britain: A Podcast about the Politics of a Disunited Kingdom

In this week's episode we have been joined by Geoffrey Pleyers , whose extensive expertise in global activism during times of crisis can provide crucial insights into the impact President Trump's authoritarian project has had on Latin America. Starting with how Mexico has struggled to overcome relentless American pressure, in our discussion we also take a broader look at what activists a...

In this week's episode, we have been joined by Christoph Meyer to take a closer look at how relations between Russia and the European Union fell apart in the 2010s. As a renowned expert in European security, Christoph provides wider insights into how the Russian state's growing hostility to Ukrainian aspirations to join the European Union became part of a wider spiral of escalation betwe...

As part of our series exploring turning points that shaped European politics, we've been joined by Lee Savage to explore the impact the collapse of Communism in 1989 had on societies across Central and Eastern Europe. With Lee's help, in this episode we will take a closer look at how the years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall witnessed economic and political upheavals whose legacies sti...

As part of our new season exploring crises that have shaped European politics, in this first episode we look at the impact the collapse of Yugoslavia in the summer of 1991 had on the European Union's military ambitions. We've been joined by Ben Jones, whose expertise on European military cooperation can provide crucial insights into how the wars that erupted through the break-up of Yugos...

With the 4 July parliamentary election now coming closer, there are growing indications of a political shock that could reshape the United Kingdom. Over the past few weeks Scotland has emerged as a key electoral battleground, where a Scottish National Party that has governed Scotland's devolved institutions for seventeen years risks losing many of its seats in the UK parliament to a resurgent...

With elections looming on 4 July, the UK faces a turning point in its relationships with Europe and the wider world. Though there are three weeks of campaigning to go, all signs point to a substantial victory for the opposition Labour Party and a total collapse for the governing Conservative - or Tory - Party. To help us explore the impact this election will have on the UK's foreign and defen...

During the 2010s the Russian state under Vladimir Putin and a Turkish government led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan deepened a geopolitical relationship involving cooperation as well as armed conflict. Both leaders faced domestic political challenges while pursuing their own visions of great power status. Over the past two decades, Dimitar Bechev has written extensively about these complex interactions b...

In the final years of the 2000s the UK and EU were rocked by seemingly endless turmoil on global financial markets. A sense of crisis over the future of the banking system and the Euro converged with a surge of support for eurosceptic populism to fundamentally disrupt British political life. To discuss the turmoil that enveloped the UK in the early 2010s we've been joined by Annette Dittert ,...

As the Crisis of the 2010s unfolded after the near collapse of the global financial system in 2008, relations between Russia and the West shifted from cautious cooperation to profound hostility. Yet even in the wake of the Russian military assault on Georgia in 2008, governments in the US and EU continued to hope for a reset of relations despite every escalatory step taken by Vladimir Putin's...

In the wake of the near collapse of the global financial system in 2008 the post-Cold War order was upended by a convergence of crises in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Beginning our series exploring this Crisis of the 2010s, we have been joined by Clingendael Institute Research Fellow Andrew Lebovich to explore the turmoil that engulfed communities across the Sahel and West Africa during thi...

In this week's episode, we have been joined by Glen O'Hara to explore the escalating crisis facing the UK's public services. Over the past 18 months among public services from universities to healthcare the British state has been shaken by waves of strikes and infrastructure breakdowns whose effects have come to be acutely felt in everyday life. With his extensive research backgroun...

This week we've been joined by Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte to explore the impact the changing social position of LGBT voters has had on British politics. As discrimination from state institutions has eased and wider social acceptance has grown, people with LGBT backgrounds have gained more space to play an open and prominent role in British politics. With his research focus on how LGBT communitie...

This week on the Breaking Britain podcast, we examine the economic dilemmas the UK faces in an increasingly competitive global landscape. Joining us is John Mills, who as a senior figure in the world of business and author exploring the global economy who has written extensively to make the case for Brexit as a potentially transformative economic project. John Mills is founder and Chairman of JML,...

As inflation, the legacies of the Covid-19 pandemic and state austerity cause lasting disruption to families across the UK, the importance of school meals in providing children with regular access to healthy food has become a matter of national debate. To explore what  political controversies over the provision of school meals can tell us about social change in the UK we've been joined by Hea...

With opinion poll leads indicating that Labour under the leadership of Keir Starmer is on a path to winning the next UK elections, the period in which the party and its leadership was at war with itself seems a distant memory. Yet the deep divisions that opened up inside Labour when it was led by Jeremy Corbyn until 2019 still echo in debates within the British Left today. To explore these divisio...

This week on the Breaking Britain podcast, we examine how the UK's central bank, the Bank of England, has responded to the crises that have threatened to overwhelm Britain's institutions and economy over the past decade. Joining us is Tony Yates, who has written extensively on the macroeconomic dimensions of Brexit and other major structural changes that have transformed the UK's re...

This week on the Breaking Britain podcast, we take a look at some of the parallels between political populism in the UK and states in Central and Eastern Europe. Joining us is Marcus How , who as an experienced analyst of rapidly changing states such as Austria, Hungary, Czechia or Poland has written extensively on the emergence of populist parties that have transformed the politics and geopolitic...

This third series of the Breaking Britain Podcast will take a closer look at  how the strategic challenges facing the UK interact with crisis and change around the European Union and its neighborhood. This week, we've invited Selim Koru to join us here at the European and International Studies Department at KCL to discuss the parallels and differences between populist politics in Turkey and p...

In November 2021, defence analysts began to notice a worrying build-up of Russian troops around Ukraine's borders. In the months that followed, this surge of troops has fuelled concerns that a Russian military invasion of Ukraine could be imminent from mid-February 2022 onwards. As frantic efforts unfolded to engage in negotiations with Russian diplomats and President Vladimir Putin along wit...

In the immediate aftermath of the Brexit referendum that led to the UK's departure from the EU, many observers assumed that the Netherlands would be the next state most likely to seek a political rupture with its European allies and partners. Long seen by UK politicians and pundits as a state with a similar outlook to their own, the Netherlands also faced a longstanding challenge to its estab...

The past decade has witnessed growing controversy surrounding the erosion of the rule of law in and outside the European Union. In Hungary, Serbia, Turkey and other European states the concentration of power in the hands of the executive at the expense of the autonomy of legislatures and judiciaries has triggered popular protests over a drift to authoritarianism. More recently, attempts by the Pol...

A year after the UK withdrew from the structures of the European Single Market, the effects of Brexit are beginning to be felt. While the COVID19 pandemic and debates about the future of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland continue to overshadow political life within the UK, the reconfiguration of the UK's relationship with the EU has also had a profound effect on relations between the UK an...

In the wake of its departure from the EU and its growing internal tensions, the UK's relationship with the wider world is undergoing a process of transformation . Still coming to terms with longstanding legacies of the British Empire as well as a recent merger of the Department for International Development with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the UK faces rapidly changing geopolitical c...

After months of campaigning, voters in Scotland, Wales and parts of England went to the polls on 6 May 2021. While local elections and a byelection signalled that the Conservative Party is still dominant in England, strong results for the Scottish National Party in Scotland and the Labour Party in Wales indicate a very different picture for two other member nations of the United Kingdom. In Scotla...

For the past half decade, British political parties and state institutions have struggled to formulate a new geopolitical role for the United Kingdom.  Faced with the twin challenges of departure from the European Union and internal pressure on the unity of the British state, the UK government has recently set out an integrated review of foreign and defence policy. In this week's episode with...