United Kingdom

With a general election expected in the next 12-18 months, the UK’s asylum system is in crisis.
The backlog is at over 130,000 cases, the system is costing around £3.6 billion a year in asylum support costs, and the Home Office is gripped by institutional challenges. At the same time, the number of people arriving in small boats has escalated rapidly from the hundreds to the tens of thousands in the past five years.
The prime minister has pledged to ‘stop the boats’ as one of his five priorities for government. Central to the government’s plan is its flagship Illegal Migration Act – which will place a duty on the home secretary to remove irregular arrivals and not consider their asylum claims – as well as the agreement to relocate asylum seekers to Rwanda.
This briefing sets out the in-tray for the UK government in 2025 – after the next general election – across the main parts of the asylum system.

Edited by Gerry Hassan, leading Scottish commentator, and Russell Gunson, Director of IPPR Scotland, Scotland, the UK and Brexit: A guide to the future is a collection of essays aimed to provide readers with a comprehensive guide to Brexit and the consequences that flow from Brexit for Scotland, while also examining UK and international implications. Contributions include a wide range of leading political specialists, journalists and academics. This book analyses the terrain, the major issues and possible developments, the context in which this takes place and how some of the major actors including the Scottish and UK governments, and the EU itself, may act.

This report brings together evidence about today’s older population, with future trends and projections, to identify the implications for the UK. This evidence will help government to develop the policies needed to adapt to an ageing population.

Domestic political backlashes against inequality, corporate malfeasance and the stagnation of real incomes over the past decade are being reinforced by uncertainties about the durability of the post-Cold War international order. Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, China’s strategic and territorial claims in the South China and East China seas, the rise of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the Syrian civil war, the migrant crisis affecting Europe and the Mediterranean, and evolving threats to cyber security – all constitute serious challenges to the rules of the global game.
A natural, and perhaps inevitable, question that emerges in the light of such concerns is: ‘How can the United Kingdom and Japan work together to deal with these issues?’ This, however, is a question more appealing to diplomats than to scholars or journalists. We are sceptical about the idea that bilateral cooperation can play a significant role in these matters, even if we are not at all opposed to it. Rather, we feel – and our feeling was confirmed by the September discussions – that what is most valuable is to enhance British and Japanese awareness and understanding of each other’s perspectives and, in particular, of the differences in emphasis or priority seen in the two countries, and thereby to help each other promote solutions more effectively in multilateral forums.
This essay aims to contribute to that process. There is plainly a great deal of overlap and agreement between Japan and the UK on many issues. There is always a lot that each country can learn from the other. But it is in the differences – whether of perspective, of experience or of emphasis – that the most important learnings lie. This essay will therefore explore differences more zealously than it seeks similarities.

The British government’s approach since 2010 of seeking to enhance the UK's relations with the world’s emerging powers while balancing these with relationships with the United States and Europe has had only limited success. With constrained resources, and in the face of intense global economic competition, mounting security challenges and decaying international institutions, trying to commit the UK equally on all three fronts will not succeed in the future.

This paper calls for a different mindset and strategy towards the UK’s place in the world – one in which Britain is surrounded by three concentric circles of influence:

- The first or ‘inner circle’ is the EU, the region with which the UK’s relationships need to be strongest and most active.
- The ‘second circle’ consists of the protective and enabling set of economic and security relationships with the US.
- Finally, an ‘outer circle’ comprises the UK’s other key bilateral and institutional relationships.

The document is a contribution to a growing body of knowledge and is aimed at the defence community. It seeks to build on previous editions of Global Strategic Trends with a more accessible format. It has a greater focus on defence and security issues and expands on other subjects, including resources, and the resurgence of ideology. From a comprehensive review of trends, it draws out 3 key themes: how we will adapt to the reality of a shifting climate and breakneck technological innovation (see the Human Environment); the dominance of the West in international affairs will fade and global power will become more evenly distributed between the West and the rising powers in Asia (see the Dynamics of Global Power); and finally, as society and the distribution of global power changes, the challenges to defence and security will increase (see Evolving Defence and Security Challenges). It draws lessons from contemporary events to conclude that globalisation is a more volatile process than previously envisaged and that this volatility may leave globalised systems more vulnerable to strategic shock and systemic failure. It also draws out high level global defence and security implications.

UK Space Vision 2025 is a glimpse of what a space enabled world may look like in 2025, what it will mean for UK’s economy, for UK’s Government, and for consumers, families and citizens. It was inspired by the recommendation of various stakeholders and presents a forward vision of a space enabled world and the benefits to the UK of maintaining its lead role in Space.