The UK's withdrawal from the EU in 2021 was a systemic shock to both parties and followed a highly politicised and damaging set of negotiations that significantly undermined trust between them. However, recent years have seen a concerted effort to return to a less fraught and more constructive relationship, as typified by the 2023 Windsor Framework that laid to rest the most immediate uncertainties about the implementation of (and commitment to) the Northern Ireland Protocol and the set of negotiations on the Strategic Partnership that started under the current Labour government in late 2025.

While this might superficially suggest a regularisation of relations, this obscures a number of fundamental and structural dynamics that are likely to generate increasing instability in the long-term. Central to this is the lack of clear strategic intent by either party, which in turn makes it harder for politicians to provide discursive leadership, so leaving public opinion to be captured by the small number of activists with strong (and often incompatible) views. With limited space to manage this between the EU's essential requirements and the UK's red lines, this is likely to generate increasing political tensions both within the parties and between them.

Drawing on an extensive set of elite interviews with EU and UK officials, the paper marks out the boundaries of the current policy space and the dynamics of its development, including a modelling of potential pathways in the medium term.

This study explores the operationalisation of soft power within the British diplomatic network in Poland, with a particular focus on cultural and scientific initiatives led by the UK Embassy in Warsaw and its affiliated institutions. While soft power, as theorised by Nye (1990; 2004), is central to contemporary statecraft, its practical application within bilateral diplomatic contexts remains underexplored. Moving beyond the notion of soft power as a static resource, the analysis positions it as a dynamic tool of active diplomacy, enacted through strategic communication, credible representation, and sustained engagement in the Polish context.

Initiatives such as the UK–Poland Seasons of Culture and knowledge exchanges via the Science and Innovation Network illustrate how the embassy functions as both a symbolic and operational actor in soft power diplomacy. These activities facilitate the circulation of ideas, expertise, and narratives that shape the UK’s reputation among Polish audiences. Viewed through the lens of public diplomacy, the transformation of cultural, educational, and normative resources into influence is examined via relationship-building, dialogue, and collaboration with Polish partners.

Empirical insights are drawn from qualitative research, including interviews with diplomatic staff in Warsaw, analysis of UK–Poland public diplomacy initiatives, and documentary evidence. This multi-source approach reveals the everyday diplomatic practices through which soft power—understood as attraction—is negotiated and transformed into influence. Ultimately, the study advances a dynamic understanding of soft power—not as a possession of states, but as a co-constructed phenomenon shaped by interactions, networks, and perceptions within the evolving UK–Poland diplomatic landscape.

Foreign interference has become a central challenge for democracies across Europe, exacerbated by digital technologies that facilitate cyber operations and amplify information manipulation. Such malign practices increasingly seek to undermine democratic processes and disrupt critical infrastructure (Hollis and Ohlin 2021). While existing scholarship has extensively examined specific counteractions and regulatory instruments, particularly the EU’s countermeasures against hybrid threats from Russia and China (Barlybaikyzy and Duisen 2025; Besnier and Ketterlin 2025; Harth, Kriener, and Wolff 2023), less attention has been paid to how individual states internally adapt to the evolving threat of foreign interference across institutional structures, political processes, and concrete policy responses. This paper addresses this gap by analysing the United Kingdom’s internal adaptation to foreign interference in the post-Brexit period.

The United Kingdom represents a particularly instructive case. Following its withdrawal from the European Union, the UK has redefined its regulatory framework while facing increasing pressure from disruptive cyber activities. At the same time, domestic politics and shifting foreign economic relations, notably toward China, have shaped the UK’s response to these threats. These conditions offer a unique opportunity to examine how liberal democracy adapts to foreign interference in a context of geopolitical uncertainty and institutional transformation.

The paper conceptualises state adaptation through the interconnected dimensions of polity, politics, and policy. Empirically, it focuses on the period from 2020 to the present and examines adaptation processes at three levels: governmental, parliamentary, and regulatory. The analysis combines qualitative interviews with policymakers and key actors from the civil service and academic spheres with a qualitative discourse analysis of official documents, employing a Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) within Critical Discourse Studies to examine government strategies, ministerial communications, parliamentary committee reports, and regulatory publications (notably from Ofcom).

Within the polity dimension, the paper examines how institutional structures and regulatory powers have adapted in response to foreign interference. The politics dimension examines how political actors discuss perceptions of threats, with a focus on legitimacy, proportionality, and democratic accountability. The policy dimension analyses the development and implementation of legal, regulatory, and societal measures to protect democratic processes and strengthen institutional and societal resilience.

By integrating interview material with policy and discourse analysis, the paper seeks to offer valuable insights into the UK’s adaptation to foreign interference as a multidimensional, dynamic process. The findings furthermore aim to contribute to debates on European security governance and democratic resilience, while directly advancing knowledge on internal state adaptation to foreign interference.

The intensity of feelings towards one’s nation, the strength of attachment they hold to that nation over other territorial entities, as well as the form and veracity of one’s national identity, have long been associated with varying degrees of Euroscepticism. In many ways, the UK’s vote to leave the European Union was the culmination of decades of British Euroscepticism. Yet, while the particularities of British national identity have for some time been considered antithetical to Europeanness, the role of collective identities, and of national identity in particular, within the Brexit conjuncture are complex. In this paper, I explore the relationship between collective identities and Brexit, focusing in particular on what Brexit reveals in terms of the national identity and the character of contemporary ‘Britishness.’ In doing so, I evince how the Leave-Remain binary cannot be understood as merely a difference between the strength of national or European identities of Leave and Remain voting citizens. Rather, of greater consequence are the specific forms of collective identity held, and how these identities intersect with other social and political identities, as well as views about who constitutes the imagined community of the UK, and the position the nation holds in relation to the rest of the world. I further illuminate the ways in which Brexit disrupted and shaped UK citizens’ sense of self and of the nation, as the UK arduously marches forward through a period of profound and difficult change.