UK bilaterals and bilateralism after Brexit

This paper discusses the development of the UK’s bilateral strategy, ambitions and approach following the UK's departure from the EU, and how it has been conceptualised in the existing literature. Using the triangle metaphor, it examines how the bilateral agreements that have been interpreted as an exercise of the UK's new-found post-Brexit freedoms are in fact conditioned by the two formal agreements negotiated by London with the EU (the Withdrawal Agreement and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement) and less visibly those that operate vicariously via its European partners through the treaty obligations they have assumed as EU member states, EEA members or countries, like Switzerland, with very close relations with the EU. It draws upon a unique dataset of the UK's known bilateral memorandum to demonstrate the significance of these constraints. The paper examines how the UK has sought to redefine its post-membership relations with European states on a bilateral basis, its bilateral aims, and at the machinery and mechanisms it has put in place to support bilateral relations. It also considers how the UK has used summitry as a platform to establish and reinforce its international standing. It looks at how the UK’s bilateral strategy has varied between different governments since the UK’s departure from the EU, and the extent to which it has been affected both by the wider relationship with the EU and by external factors, such as securitisation in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the instability caused by the second Trump administration, and action by China.