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## The Anglosphere: new enthusiasm for an old dream

### Having cut Britain adrift of Europe, Brexiters are indulging in an old fantasy about a new national role in the world—as the hub of a far-flung Anglosphere

by Duncan Bell / January 19, 2017 / Leave a comment

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Published in February 2017 issue of Prospect Magazine

Leading Brexiteers proposed Britain should reinforce its relationship with “natural allies” Australia, Canada and New Zealand ©Royal Geographical Society, London, UK/Bridgeman Images

Theresa May’s government is frantically trying to square all sorts of circles, but it cannot conceal the abject confusion about post-Brexit Britain’s place in the world. Can it act alone on a crowded stage? How can it compete against giants like the European Union, the United States, or China? Should it even try?

Many of the leading Brexiteers have proposed a simple answer to these questions: the Anglosphere. Britain, they suggest, should reanimate its long-standing relationship with its “natural” allies—principally Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US. In championing this far-flung union, the Brexiteers draw—sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously—on a strand of thought that stretches back to the Victorian age. Like so much else about the current moment—from the planned restoration of grammar schools to cries for relaunching the Royal Yacht Britannia—the past serves as inspiration and guide. We are invited to march back to the future.

On a chilly Tuesday in December 1999, Margaret Thatcher rose to deliver a speech in New York. Her hosts were the English-Speaking Union (ESU), founded in 1918 to promote co-operation between the “English-speaking peoples.” The English-speaking world, she proclaimed, had a providential task to fulfil. “We take seriously the sanctity of the individual; we share a common tradition of religious toleration; we are committed to democracy and representative government; and we are resolved to uphold and spread the rule of law.” Citing John Locke, Edmund Burke, and Thomas Jefferson, she recommended an alliance that would “redefine the political landscape” and transform “backward areas [by] creating the conditions for a genuine world community.” A new civilising mission beckoned.

The ex-Prime Minister was not the only one airing such grandiose ideas as the new millennium approached. Indeed she was drawing on a proposal that the historian Robert Conquest had sketched in a speech to the ESU a few months earlier. At a time when the consensus was that Britain’s settled future lay in the EU, Conquest boldly charged that existing international bodies had failed. An alternative was required. He suggested an “Anglo-Oceanic” political association “weaker than a federation, but stronger than an alliance.” It would help bring peace to a violent planet. A few years later he argued that an “Anglosphere Association” would become “a centre of hope in the world… round which peace, co-operation and democracy can develop.”

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### Comments

1. ##### Srdjan

   January 19, 2017 at 15:31
   Wonderful piece. In many ways the idea of the Anglosphere is indeed a lost cause--Angloonism, if you like. That said, multiple Anglospheres exist in international security, the outstanding case in point being, following Snowden, the Five Eyes 'network of networks' in intelligence. Less known are Anglospheres hiding under acronyms such as ABCA and AUSCANNZUKUS and odd titles like the Combined Communications Electronics Board. Many of these institutions and practices go back to an era when many powerful people strongly believed in the unity of global Anglo-Saxondom. Further, Anglosphere clusters can also be found in finance, diplomacy, the media and the like. So, while none of this implies a possibility of a reconstituted settler empire, it does help explain why this idea continues to have a vice-like grip over some minds.
   Reply

2. ##### George Richardson

   January 20, 2017 at 05:16
   Article is off track. The strength of CANZUK is its common Magna Carta values-based narrative identity bolstered by common institutions including the same Head of State. The mistaken view that CANZUK is a nostalgic fantasy is premised on the misconception that ethnicity is the source of its cohesion. Granted, Magna Carta values originated in a particular ethnic context, but it now transcends ethnicity and continues to evolve in an the increasingly multicultural context. Using the label 'Magna Carta' seems appropriate, though the Magna Carta represents just one milestone in a long circuit, and often tenuous, evolution over many centuries. One would hope that the other 12 Realms would be integrated as soon as is practical if they so desire.
   Reply

3. ##### Paul Samengo-Turner

   January 21, 2017 at 09:30
   You describe the fantasy regarding the past well; however, I think you neglect the Brexit Establishment's concept that they will be the leaders of this Anglosphere. A role that they were simply unable to obtain within the EU and which led to the inferiority complex that drove the leave vote.
   Reply

4. ##### Theropo

   January 28, 2017 at 13:32
   An interesting article. However, the argument that Australia, Canada and New Zealand are less "Anglo" now is an odd one if you think about it -- it seems to pander to the old racist idea, or indeed the new one (what we call "identity politics"), that non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants can never be "real" Englishmen, Australians, etc., but will forever be exotics. One must hope it is wrong, since genetics suggest that the English themselves are in fact mainly Welsh, quite apart from the fact that Britain too has had mass immigration lately. Admittedly it is hard to shake off that atavistic way of thinking. At the time of the Australian referendum on keeping the monarchy, I lazily assumed that areas with a lot of immigrants from the Middle East etc. would have tended to vote for a republic. In an idle moment recently, I decided to check that assumption by looking at the voting records of the districts with the largest numbers of recent immigrants, and find it was diametrically wrong -- they voted strongly in favour of keeping the monarchy. I don't think it could have been the immigrants staying at home on voting day and the natives voting for the monarchy in protest at the immigrants, as these were areas whose population was mainly immigrant.
   Reply

5. ##### James Arrowsmith

   February 2, 2017 at 17:08
   The Anglo-Sphere fits nicely with the rest of the Orwellian system being developed by our non-majority elected dictators. He called it Oceania, the UK of course being Airstrip One
   Reply

6. ##### Adrian Apap

   February 10, 2017 at 10:10
   When Hitler spoke of uniting all the Germanic peoples once again, a few people may have batted an eyelid. Why is the Anglosphere now being portrayed as a natural union of like-minded peoples. The idea is actually quite horrific.
   Reply

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## About this author

Duncan Bell
Duncan Bell is a Reader in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. His most recent book is "Reordering the World: Essays on Liberalism and Empire" (Princeton, 2016)

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