From de-exceptionalising Brexit to understanding “Global Britain” through diasporic connections

Written by Dr Catherine Ruth Craven

On November 17th 2023 approximately 100 scholars, lawyers, and activists working on issues related to migration and citizenship gathered in central Birmingham for an international symposium on Migration, coloniality and belonging in ‘Global Britain’. The meeting centered the findings and ongoing research of the MIGZEN project, for which I had been a Postdoctoral Research Associate until July of this year.

Led by Prof. Michaela Benson and Prof. Nando Sigona, and funded by the UKRI’s Governance after Brexit scheme, over the last 2.5 years MIGZEN ((Re)Bordering Britain and Britons after Brexit) traced the impact of Brexit on migrants and migration at multiple scales, from people’s shifting sense of identity and belonging, to changes in migration flows and governance.

As the project begins to wind up its work, I want to revisit some of its key ambitions and contributions, from de-exceptionalising Brexit, to telling “Global Britain”’s emerging migration story. These contributions – in combination with my past research focus on diaspora politics – form the backdrop to my new research project at the University of Sheffield, which will examine the role of diasporic connections and the making of “Global Britain”.

1. From de-exceptionalising Brexit to understanding “Global Britain”’s migration story

The start of the MIGZEN project coincided with the formal end of the Brexit transition period, meaning that Brexit – the UK’s exit from the European Union – was formally completed. The project therefore examined – in real time – what this meant for those millions of people who had taken advantage of the EU’s Right to Freedom of Movement while the UK was still a member of the EU. These Free Movers encompassed citizens of EU member states who – at the time of the Brexit referendum – were living in the UK, as well as British citizens who were then living in the EU. 

At the Birmingham symposium, the MIGZEN team shared findings on how Brexit had impacted on these people’s lives, their sense of identity, and belonging. We discussed how Brexit had first opened up and then closed down opportunities for cross-channel political mobilisation based on shared EU citizenship, and what Brexit meant for families who no longer shared the same immigration status in their country of residence. Further to this, my colleague Elena Zambelli and I have written about how Brexit intersected with attitudes towards the British monarchy, in turn shaping people’s sense of Britishness. Underlying this empirical research was a conceptualisation of Brexit – not as epiphenomenal or exceptional – but as a (re)bordering process, unfolding in the “everyday” (see Yuval-Davis et al. 2018) as well as at the international scale. 

As the MIGZEN project progressed, so did British migration policy and politics, importantly alongside rapid geopolitical shifts, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Who was (and who wasn’t!) migrating to the UK after Brexit was no longer just about Britain’s repositioning vis-a-vis the EU. Accordingly, MIGZEN gradually pivoted from exploring Brexit’s impact on former Free Movers, to research with newly arriving migrants. 

The project thus shifted its focus from the more immediate fallouts of Brexit, to understanding “Global Britain” (a term introduced by the UK government in 2018 to symbolise its shifting global political priorities) and its emerging migration story. As we explore in the MIGZEN podcast series, this story features migrants from Ukraine, Hong Kong and elsewhere. But it also includes the policies and politics that made their migrations possible, alongside new (and old) forms of boundary-drawing, marginalisation, and exclusion.

2. Coloniality, migration & diaspora

Upon closer inspection, one of the key features of “Global Britain” is its fairly explicit invocation of global and historical entanglements. As MIGZEN research shows, coloniality shapes British citizenship governance and how the UK government selects migrants for bespoke visa schemes. Beyond Brexit, highlighting the importance of understanding the present state of migration politics in Britain through the lens of history, Sheffield-based sociologist Lucy Mayblin’s work has shown how contemporary politics of asylum are rooted in empire. 

While the role played by migrants and diasporic communities themselves within these structural dynamics remains understudied, Ipek Demir has recently made the case for why migrants or diaspora are not just subjects of colonial governance legacies in the present, but active agents in processes of decolonization. 

Here I want to suggest that, in addition to considering the liberatory potential of diaspora, it is important to interrogate where and when they play a role in state-driven nation-building processes. This includes in the context of “Global Britain”. As I explored in my PhD thesis, while diaspora are powerful actors in world politics, whether they can successfully resist or are co-opted into dominant modes of governance is highly relational and not an essential quality of any one population or individual. 

3. Diasporic connections and the making of “Global Britain”

The (emerging) Hongkonger diaspora in the UK is a case in point. In 2021, the UK government introduced a bespoke visa for British Nationals Overseas (BN(O)s) born under British rule before the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997. The visa was launched in the midst of a crackdown on protests and democratic politics in Hong Kong and so was welcomed by hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong residents. Well over 100,000 have taken this visa route and settled in the UK over the last two years. That colonial entanglements have shaped this recent change to British immigration rules is indisputable. Additionally, the launch of the BN(O) visa scheme presents a form of migration diplomacy, whereby the UK uses the population of BN(O) status holders as currency in its diplomatic relations with China. 

But what is also true, is that since the launch of the BN(O) scheme, Hongkongers in the UK have been organising tirelessly to make sure their rights and those of their fellow Hong Kong immigrants are upheld within the UK. This has included lobbying the British government to expand the scope of the visa scheme, but also to influence British foreign policy in the Indo-Pacific region. 

This makes clear that the process of making ‘Global Britain’ is not just a one way street, a statebuilding project rolled out from above. Rather, it is a site of struggle, which can highlight the ability of some – not all – marginalised populations to engage with, resist, and even challenge powerful state actors. Examining how the UK government engages with these diasporic mobilisations, is then also a way in to understanding how Britain deals with its imperial legacy. 

Conclusion

For the MIGZEN project, taking Brexit seriously meant understanding how its impact was felt unevenly across populations, how it informed political struggles in different spaces, and how this changed over time. 

Similarly, “Global Britain” is worth investigating, not as something exceptional but for what it can reveal about the logic underpinning how the UK draws boundaries around populations and territories, and to what end. It is a political project with deep historical roots. (Dis)entangling these from the perspective of diasporic connections can reveal sites and modes of power – compliance and resistance – that we otherwise do not see.