The United Kingdom, Scotland, and the World: The Next Five Years
Friday 17 January 2025, 15:30-18:30
Location: City Chambers, 253 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1YJ
Cost: Free of charge, though booking is required
Booking Closing Date: 12:00, Monday 13 January 2025
Dress Code: N/A
Event Type: Two panel discussions, with drinks reception in between
In January, the Centre for Geopolitics’ (University of Cambridge) UK Union Programme is hosting a panel event featuring one of our Fellows, Professor Clare Jackson, on the future of the UK Union over the next five years. We will be reserving seats for members of Trinity Hall at the event, and would be delighted if you could join us.
The UK Union has faced many complex geopolitical challenges throughout its history. The recent past and the present day are no exception. Following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the 2016 Brexit referendum and subsequent debates on Northern Irish and Scottish issues, there is now an opportunity for policymakers and academics to consider the long-term future of the UK Union and how it might evolve to better serve the interests of all four nations. Moreover, these conversations must recognise the geopolitical context in which they take place, not least Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the UK’s evolving relationships with Europe, the United States and in the Indo-Pacific.
Programme
15:30 Door open/opening remarks
16:00 Seminar begins, with tea and coffee halfway
18:30 Seminar ends
Panel 1, The Future of the UK Union
Panellists: Prof. Clare Jackson, Prof. Nicola McEwen, Murdo Fraser MSP, Ben Macpherson MSP
Chair: Jack Liddall
Panel 2, UK Strategic Partnerships: The Next Five Years
Panellists: Prof. Brendan Simms, Dr John Nilsson-Wright, further speakers TBC
Chair: Dr Hugo Bromley (2019)
Please see below for full biographies.
The Centre’s UK Union Programme explores the longer history of the Union and seeks to bring academics and policymakers together to further understanding and discuss the future of UK political institutions in historical context.
Booking
There is no charge to attend,however, booking is required. Places are limited and tickets will be available on a first come, first served basis so please book early to avoid disappointment.
We will initiate a waiting list once the event is full.
Once you have booked your place, you will receive a booking confirmation email, and final details will be circulated in the week before the event.
Panellist
Professor Clare Jackson
Clare Jackson is Walter Grant Scott Fellow in History at Trinity Hall and Honorary Professor of Early Modern History in the University of Cambridge. Fascinated by the rich and complex history of Stuart Britain and its Continental neighbours, she has presented a number of highly successful television programmes for the BBC, including The Stuarts (2014) and The Stuarts in Exile (2015) which are regularly repeated on the BBC, PBS, LondonLive and other channels. Her most recent book, Devil-Land. England under Siege 1588-1688 (2021) won the Wolfson History Prize in 2022 and was selected as a ‘Book of the Year’ by The Times, The Times Literary Supplement, The Daily Telegraph, The New Statesman and The Sydney Morning Herald. Her forthcoming life of King James VI & I will be published by Allen Lane in autumn 2025.
Panellist
Professor Nicola McEwen
Nicola McEwen is Co-Director of the Centre on Constitutional Change (CCC). She leads the CCC’s research on devolution and inter-institutional relations as a Fellow on our ongoing major ESRC-funded project, Between Two Unions: The Constitutional Future of the Islands after Brexit.
She is also a Senior Fellow within the UK in a Changing Europe, an initiative supported by the ESRC to examine the UK’s relationship with the EU and to inform the Brexit process. She leads its research on devolution and the impact of Brexit on the future of the UK. Her new project, entitled A Family of Nations? Brexit, Devolution and the Union, explores intergovernmental relations in UK-EU negotiations, future trade negotiations, the development of the UK domestic market, and the effects of Brexit on the politics of independence. Other recent research projects include an ESRC Senior Scotland Fellowship exploring the implications of Scottish independence for cross-border relations.
Nicola has published widely in the field of territorial politics, nationalism, devolution, and multi-level parties and elections. She is actively involved in informing debate within the wider policy and political community.
Panellist
Murdo Fraser MSP
Murdo Fraser is a Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party politician who has represented the Mid Scotland and Fife Region since 2001. He serves on the Economy and Fair Work Committee, and the Finance and Public Administration Committee. Before politics, Murdo Fraser grew up in Inverness and attended Inverness Royal Academy. He went on to train in Law at the University of Aberdeen before becoming a solicitor.
Panellist
Ben Macpherson MSP
Ben Macpherson is a Scottish National Party politician who has represented the Edinburgh Northern and Leith constituency since 2016. He served as Minister for Social Security and Local Government from May 2021 to March 2023, having previously served as Minister for Europe, Migration and International Development; Minister for Public Finance and Migration; and Minister for Rural Affairs and the Natural Environment.
Chair
Jack Liddall
Jack is studying for his PhD in Politics and International Studies at St John’s College and is involved in the Centre’s UK Union Programme. Jack’s research interests include the UK Union, devolution, constitutional politics and parliamentary studies. He is taking a comparative approach to understanding the roles that the UK Parliament, Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru play within intergovernmental relations in the UK.
Jack completed an MA in History and Politics at the University of Edinburgh in 2022, which included undertaking research funded by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland where he investigated shared rule in Scotland and the UK. He then undertook his MPhil studies at the University of Cambridge. He is part of the Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP) network and has contributed to the Bennett Institute for Public Policy as a Research Assistant. As a Research Assistant within the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh, he is working on a British Academy/Leverhulme-funded project exploring knowledge networks in the House of Commons. Jack is also the Communications Officer for the Political Studies Association Specialist Group on Parliaments.
Panellist
Professor Brendan Simms
Brendan Simms is the founder and Director of the Centre for Geopolitics. He works on European geopolitics, past and present, and his principal interests are the German Question, Britain and Europe, Hitler’s global anti-semitism, Humanitarian Intervention and state construction.
He teaches at both undergraduate and graduate level in the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS). He has supervised PhD dissertations on subjects as diverse as Intervention and State Sovereignty in the Holy Roman Empire, Sinn Fein, the American colonists and the eighteenth-century European state system, the Office of the UN High Representative in Bosnia, and German Civil-Military relations. Professor Simms is a frequent contributor to print and broadsheet media.
He has advised governments and parliaments, and spoken at Westminster, in the European Parliament (Brussels) and at think-tanks in the United Kingdom, the United States and in many Eurozone countries. The Centre for Geopolitics is designed to draw together all these interests.
Panellist
Dr John Nilsson-Wright
John Nilsson-Wright (formerly Swenson-Wright) is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (FAMES) at the University of Cambridge and an Official Fellow at Darwin College. He is a graduate of Christ Church and St. Antony’s Colleges, Oxford, and SAIS Johns Hopkins University. He was Head of the Chatham House Asia Programme from March 2014 to October 2016 and has also been the Senior Research Fellow for Northeast Asia and Korea Foundation Fellow with Chatham House’s Asia-Pacific Programme. He is also a non-resident fellow at the Sejong Institute in Seoul, ROK; Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Korea Centre, East Asia Institute, National University of Singapore (NUS); and a non-resident fellow at the Centre for North Korean Studies at the University of Vienna. His research focuses on Cold War history including US-Japan alliance ties, and the contemporary international relations and politics of Northeast Asia, with reference to Japan and the Koreas. In his policy work, he focuses on regional security and the changing nature of alliance relations in East Asia. He is currently writing a monograph on populism and identity politics as a contemporary and historical phenomenon in both Europe and Northeast Asia.
Chair
Dr Hugo Bromley (2019)
Hugo Bromley (2019) is a historian of manufacturing, geopolitics, and international trade. As the the Engelsberg Applied History Research Fellow, Dr Bromley acts as an assistant director for the Centre for Geopolitics, coordinates the Centre’s work on economic statecraft and applied history and leads the UK Union Programme.
Articles by Dr Bromley have been accepted for publication in the English Historical Review and International Security. His current book project, Economic Patriotism, looks at the role of textile manufacturers in forming the British state through representative institutions. He is also the co-author, with Brendan Simms, of the forthcoming book Britain and the Baltic: A Documentary History, and the co-author, with Eyck Freymann, of On Day One, an Economic Contingency Plan for a Taiwan Crisis.
Dr Bromley received his PhD from Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge, in 2022. He is an affiliated research associate of Robinson College, Cambridge.
Cancellations
Please let us know as soon as possible if you are no longer able to attend, as we have limited capacity and will run a waiting list. Please email the office or call +44 (0)1223 763010 at the earliest opportunity.
Photography
We like to take photos at our events to use in our digital and print communications. If you do not wish to have your photo taken, please let us know in advance or on the day.
Location
City Chambers, 253 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1YJ
Contact
If you have any queries, please contact Rebecca Horner on alumnievents@trinhall.cam.ac.uk or call +44 (0)1223 763010.
For general questions about College events, please see our FAQS.
