Dr Roger Higginson
Wilton Park, an Executive Agency sponsored by the Foreign, Commonwealth, & Development Office (FCDO) is the UK government’s expert in convening international policy dialogue. It supports UK foreign policy development and the UK government’s international strategic priorities. Wilton Park holds around 80 strategic dialogues each year, which convene around 3,500 representatives and opinion formers, representing over 120 countries.
From 20 – 21 August 2026 it held its ‘Bridging the Millenium’ conference in partnership with the Institute of Historical Research and the Sir Heinz Koeppler Trust. The event was essentially a forward look on possible future activities, taking into account its development since 1946 when it was founded as a driver for revitalising post-World War II Anglo-German relations, reconciliation and peace building. Around 35 senior university academics and foreign policy researchers met for a sequence of panel discussions following an opening seminar on the ways in which Wilton Park has made external expertise, knowledge and analysis available to the FCDO.
My own reflections on this event were informed by a career in central government as an international policy lead in the communications and cultural sectors. Doctoral research at the University of Sussex subsequently gave a deeper insight into the ways that government concerns with the promotion of their own policy narratives could easily lead to a failure to properly account for the differing perspectives of others.
Various themes emerged from the conference, of which the following formed a leitmotif across the various panels:
The UK is no longer a global power, and needs to adapt to the multi-polar world that has been developing since the turn of the twenty first century. Its aims and objectives must be tailored to the resources it has available, and it needs to be realistic as to the level of its ‘soft power’ and capacity to influence. Peter Ricketts’ ‘Hard Choices, The Making and Unmaking of Global Britain’ was mentioned in this respect. He is a former Permanent Secretary at the FCDO, now sitting as a cross-bench peer.
Although the USA is likely to remain the UK’s most important ally for the foreseeable future, the degree of its commitment to both the UK and Europe needs to be evaluated within the context of its shifting focus towards China and East Asia. As a result we should guard against being perceived as overly dependent on Washington, and ensure that Britain’s voice in the world reflects – and is seen to reflect – our own identity.
There was a general consensus about the importance of history in informing foreign policy. Some participants regretted what they perceived to be a decline in strategic perspective in the FCDO, matched by insufficient appreciation of the way that historical events have influenced other countries’ perceptions of the UK. Iran was cited as a prime example of this, where anti-British feelings have deep roots, based on the degree of interference in the country’s domestic affairs from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. Lack of awareness of that history threatens to bedevil current bilateral relations, which are already challenging.
Some argued that a tension has developed between interests and values in foreign policy, with a need to be more clear-sighted as to the point when promoting the latter risked diverging from the national interest, especially over the longer term. The war in Ukraine was given as an example, where what threatens to become a continuous state of war and hostilities with Russia risk generating negative consequences where all the countries involved will suffer to a greater or lesser extent.
This conference stimulated a high degree of participation from individual members and gave much food for thought for Wilton Park as it positions its portfolio of activities for a rapidly changing, and less stable world. This was a successful event which prepared the ground for worthwhile follow-up.
About the author
Dr Roger Higginson is a Research Associate at the University of Sussex, where he took his Ph.D. on the history of the early years of the British Mandate in Palestine in 2021. He has since been working on relations between the NATO powers and Iran, Russia, and Turkey. During his former career as a central government official he headed the EU & International unit at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), representing the UK in a range of EU and international organisations.
