ABSTRACT
In a speech at the inaugural Commonwealth Trade Ministers’ Meeting on 9 March 2017, UK Secretary of State for International Trade Liam Fox (2017b) highlighted the Commonwealth’s ‘vast pool of talent and resources that can help transform the world’ and argued that through this organisation ‘we – some of the world’s oldest and most resilient friendships and partnerships – can provide the leadership that will guarantee the opportunities that the next generation deserve to have’. The launch of a Commonwealth Trade Ministers Meeting and the optimistic tone struck by Fox’s speech reflected an important strand in British Eurosceptic discourse in the lead-up to and aftermath of the referendum on UK membership of the European Union (EU) on 23 June 2016. This discourse centred on the idea that reinvigorated economic relations between Britain and its fifty-two former colonies in the Commonwealth could provide a basis for a renewed global role for the UK in the wake of Brexit. Many commentators are quick to dismiss this idea as the ‘ultimate Eurosceptic fantasy’ (Bagehot’s Notebook 2011), pointing out the Commonwealth’s fragmentation and diversity, its limited clout on the global stage and its small economic significance to the UK in comparison to the EU. However, this is to underplay the significance of the Commonwealth as part of the ideological driving force of Brexit, as well as its place in the government’s vision for a so-called Global Britain.
