Rethinking the UK’s role in a fractured world

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The world feels more unsettled than at any point in recent decades. War has returned to Europe. Great-power rivalry has intensified. Climate impacts are accelerating faster than institutions can respond, and progress on ending extreme poverty is stalling. Meanwhile, the so-called rules-based international order is under greater threat than ever before, and from some of the very countries that helped establish and police it.

Viewed through the lens of stabilisation and security, the UK has been an active player on the world stage in recent years. On Ukraine, it has shown leadership and resolve, mobilising diplomatic, military, and financial support in response to Russia’s invasion. It has worked to stabilise alliances during a turbulent period in US politics and to manage the geopolitical fallout of fragmenting global trade, technology, and security, but has also taken consequential decisions to break with the USA, particularly over war with Iran.

Yet this activity has been fundamentally defensive. It has been shaped by crisis management rather than agenda setting: responding to war, shoring up alliances under stress, or compensating for shocks generated elsewhere, notably during the Trump administration. These efforts have been necessary and, at times, effective, but they frame foreign policy as largely about stopping things from getting worse.

In his first major foreign policy statement, published on the day he was nominated to be the next leader of the Labour Party, Andy Burnham argued: ​“We must rebuild Britain’s hard power to face a darker world.” Given all that is going on in the world, it is not surprising to see Burnham underline the importance of security and defence, but it was also reassuring to see him acknowledge the importance of being ​“guided by our values”. His point is that ​“Countries work with us not only because of what we bring to the table, but because they know what we stand for and what we stand against.” It is to that notion that this essay collection speaks.

Taken together, the contributions to this collection sketch an ambitious agenda for international cooperation. There is no doubt that the world is a dangerous and uncertain place at the moment. Still, there is also an opportunity to test new ideas and initiatives, to build the next generation of institutions and practices that will deliver a more just, equal and sustainable world. The essays in this collection are from a range of MPs across political parties, from new intake backbenchers to former ministers. The policies they propose are varied, but they also respond to a common constellation of factors – both threats and opportunities – that demand a rethinking of international cooperation. The essays are not exhaustive; for example, they do not cover the deepening international debt crisis, but they do offer a range of concrete and workable ideas that can help the incoming prime minister and Cabinet as they navigate the international context.

Just as this is a moment for a reset of the domestic agenda in the UK, so too might there be a chance for the UK to rethink international priorities and lead progress on such critical and tangible issues as energy security, illicit finance, polluter-pays levies, and wealth taxation.

Navigating the geopolitical context

For all authors, the world feels more unsettled than at any point in recent decades. There are more armed conflicts now than at any time since the second world war. The great multi-decade project of development and poverty alleviation is stalling in the face of the climate crisis and multiple energy, food, debt, and health shocks – and we are now in an era of eye-watering wealth inequality.

Notably, these are no longer crises only affecting marginalised communities or lower-income countries (though of course there is far less to cushion impacts for those people) but there are real threats to the livelihoods and futures of citizens in the UK.

Against this, the rules, norms, and cooperative frameworks that emerged after the second world war, and were adapted again after the cold war, are under visible strain. Many of our authors talk of a return to an era of great power rivalry, characterised by economic domination and coercion. Most disorientating for UK policymakers has been the role of the USA on the global stage in recent years. As Gareth Thomas writes in his essay, ​“The United States, the power that underwrote the post-war multilateral order, is now under an administration that treats that order with open contempt.” And it is not just rules and institutions under threat. Alongside them is a threat to some of the core values that established the post-war project, not least – as Beccy Cooper writes powerfully – the concerted, organised counter-offensive against the rights of women and girls.

A middle power, with a history that still matters

Mark Carney, the former Governor of the Bank of England and now prime minister of Canada, has helped crystallise the identity of the UK in this shifting world order. In his speech to the gathering at Davos in January 2026, he called to fellow ​“middle powers” to chart a new path of mutual resilience and coalition building. It’s an identity willingly adopted by many of our authors and seems to sit well with a UK that has long resisted being solely a European power; a country that can no longer define its foreign policy by the ​‘special relationship’ with the USA to such a great extent; and the recognition that middle powers and their concerns span nations across the old divides of Global North and Global South.

This is not to say that the UK’s history doesn’t matter for our identity. Our responsibilities and opportunities are profoundly shaped by being a former colonial power and a key architect of the post-war order, which retains a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Our role in the modern Commonwealth may now be one amongst equals, but, as our author Emily Darlington points out, the UK has invested the most and hosts the secretariat; therefore, we have a potentially outsize role in defining the political future of this institution.

Our history as a part of the EU is recent, recent enough to still be a live debate. Although none of our authors is calling for re-joining, it’s also clear from Gareth Thomas’s essay that the status quo is undesirable. Finally, we should not forget our other identity of recent history, that of an ​‘aid superpower’. Fleur Anderson rejects the sense of inevitable decline in the development agenda and calls for a rolling ten-year framework with a credible pathway back towards 0.7% of gross national income. Crucially, she argues for an invigorated Department for Development and International Climate Action.

Reframing security

It is not surprising that senior UK leaders have focused on how to navigate a dangerous world. For example, David Lammy’s approach when he was deputy prime minister and foreign secretary was grounded in what he called ​“progressive realism”, a pragmatic, sober recognition of the limits of the UK’s influence in an unsettled and multipolar world. Writing in July 2026, the current foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, shares a similar approach, recognising that ​“the world is more dangerous than it has been for decades” and underlining the need to make our ​“country safer, our economy stronger and our people more secure”.

The authors in this collection seem to share a different framing. One that is not naïve about the world’s problems or the threats to the institutions we have relied on, but that is, however, stubbornly determined that there can still be a confident, coherent vision of what the UK should be for in the next phase of international cooperation. Furthermore, they write that this vision can offer hope that things can be better and that progress remains possible. That’s vital; without hope, citizens cannot be expected to invest in the sort of civic interaction, political engagement, and economic policies required to see a better future. As the saying goes, the arc of history is long but bends towards justice. That may be right, but the lives of men and women are not lived as arcs of history. They are lived in the here and now. Here-and-now leaders need to be able to show that they can work together to deliver policies that are human centred and can offer hope for tomorrow as well as for future generations.

“Rethinking the UK’s role in a fractured world is not a call for retrenchment or scepticism, or to be fearful of our insecure world. It is a call for renewal”

This sense of states such as the UK needing to work together to deliver for lives lived today comes across from many of our authors. Beccy Cooper, writing on the rights of women and girls, completely rejects the idea that gender justice can be put on the back shelf while the hard issues of security, economic development, or geopolitics take centre stage. Without constant commitment to gender justice, not only is a generation of women and girls being discarded, but the outcomes for all are weaker. Bobby Dean argues for a change in fiscal rules so that investing in the skills, health, or education of people today is seen as an investment in resilience and the long-term health of our economy just as much as any capital investment in infrastructure. Bayo Alaba, himself a former paratrooper, expertly lays out why UK defence investment cannot be held up against, and directly traded for, investment in poverty alleviation, defending human rights, and peacebuilding. Lives lived well today, with hope, are much less likely to be tomorrow’s security threat.

Climate anxiety and climate grief are a growing experience, across all generations. It saps hope and is politicised to create dissatisfaction. We cannot ignore the climate emergency. But both Polly Billington and Ellie Chowns argue that this isn’t necessarily a message of hardship and sacrifice today. As Billington makes clear, geopolitical instability and coercion leading to energy price shocks mean that this is not a choice between a comfortable fossil-fuelled future and an insecure world of renewables. No secure energy future exists without renewables, and now is the time to work together to see that come about. As Chowns lays out, this is actually a choice between allowing the record profits from fossil fuels to continue, or enacting a range of polluter-pays taxes to hasten the end of oil and gas and invest in public goods, at home and abroad.

Making the most of this moment

There are several reasons why the timing of this collection is critical. First, we are at a time of political shifts in the UK. A new prime minister, new ministers and their advisers will be looking for credible proposals that can underpin a refreshed international approach, ideas that are serious, deliverable, and politically defensible. This collection is designed to speak directly to this moment.

Second, the UK would find itself in good company if it looked to collaborate with other progressive governments on global issues. Deputy PM David Lammy represented the UK at the Barcelona Defence of Democracy summit in April 2026. This gathering of progressive political leaders demonstrates increasing willingness to chart a new narrative in global economic governance, underpinned by some tangible policy proposals.

It is far from the only ​‘coalition of the willing’ emerging, including those working together to phase out fossil fuels, raise solidarity levies on polluting activities, establish an International Panel on Inequality, and more.

Finally, we have our own moment to lead. The UK will hold the G20 in 2027 and is expected to hold the G7 Presidency in 2028. This is a significant opportunity for the UK. The G20 remains the only forum that brings together advanced economies and major emerging powers at the highest political level. It is messy, contested, and imperfect ‒ but it is indispensable. And its agenda is not predetermined. Host governments have real influence.

The UK will host the G20 following what is already proving to be a disruptive US presidency, in which many of the progressive initiatives that have been sidelined and almost all of the stakeholder engagement has been stopped. That context heightens both the risk of fragmentation and the need for credible leadership from other countries committed to cooperation.

Many of our authors contribute sharp, deliverable policy ideas for a UK-hosted G20 to take forward. For example, Liam Byrne proposes that the UK use its G20 presidency to revisit and progress the issue of designing a wealth tax that actually works and helps transform domestic resource mobilisation in countries both rich and poor. Joe Powell raises the bar on what can be achieved on illicit financial flows.

This is the time, he writes, to finally require transparency from the UK’s own Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories, as well as a focus on property, to anonymous-owned properties in our cities, tax haven secrecy, and a world of ​“professional enablers”. Polly Billington outlines a three-point G20 plan to deliver targeted support to help households and communities reduce energy demand and access cleaner energy; investment in grid infrastructure and distribution to unleash the revolution in renewables and electrification; and scaled-up finance for the most vulnerable countries.

Each proposal is framed with Whitehall and Westminster in mind: clear lines of responsibility, realistic timeframes, and routes to internationalisation through the G20 and other forums.

It is also worth noting that a focus on international policy and coalitions to drive change is not inconsistent with a drive for localism and radical devolution. Arguably, the system of multilateralism, which was only the preserve of nation states, is over. ​‘National interest’ was always the interest of the ruling elite in any one country. A modern foreign policy must take more seriously the negotiated national interest that takes place in democratic and multicultural societies, and decentralise its international relations. As Gareth Thomas writes in his essay, the UK would do well – with its leading cities and distinct nations and internationally renowned universities – to promote a more networked and agile approach, a ​“multilateralism from below”.

Rethinking, not retreating

The title of this collection matters. Rethinking the UK’s role in a fractured world is not a call for retrenchment or scepticism, or to be fearful of our insecure world. It is a call for renewal.

It argues that a more ambitious and principled UK approach to global cooperation is both necessary and possible. It means moving beyond defensive internationalism towards a clearer sense of direction. It means using moments like the G20 presidency not as ceremonial milestones, but as levers for reform. And it means backing values with policy, turning commitments into action.

This collection is part of a wider programme of work at the New Economics Foundation that examines the future of global economic cooperation. As fractured as the world may seem at the moment, we are also witnessing the emergence of new ideas, new initiatives, and new norms. These essays highlight examples, such as the efforts at the G20 to create a tax on the super-rich and the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force. At NEF, we are also excited by the emergence of numerous other initiatives, including the Borrowers’ Club of highly indebted nations to work together to push back on predatory behaviour by creditors and the proposal for an International Panel on Inequality that would establish a trusted, scientific framework for designing policy to tackle inequality.

Amid all the uncertainty and disruption of the current context, these ​‘coalitions of the doing’ are working to make progress on issues where lowest common denominator multilateral action cannot. This collection, alongside a series of convenings in the UK and globally, is part of this effort to nurture new and better forms of economic cooperation.

At a time when global cooperation is under strain, the UK has a choice: to attempt to shore up the old or to help shape the future through leadership as well as strategic followership. The essays that follow are offered in the belief that the second path is both more demanding ‒ and more worthwhile.

Image: Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Flickr