Op-ed | The UK’S Long and Winding Road Back to Brussels

October 6, 2026

Andy Burnham’s recent party conference speech marked a fundamental shift in the UK’s position on a future relationship with the European Union, effectively abandoning the post-Brexit ‘red lines’ set out in Labour’s 2024 election manifesto. The four options mentioned by the Prime Minister are preserving the status quo, joining a customs union, joining the single market, or full EU membership (‘going all the way’). The 2024 manifesto had explicitly ruled out returning to the customs union or the single market or allowing freedom of movement. Beyond acknowledging that Brexit has done ‘more harm than good’, Burnham has so far given no indication of his preferred option.

Pessimists might say that, ten years after the Brexit referendum, coming up with four theoretical options is hardly a political masterstroke. But this sea-change in Government policy holds out hope that, after all those wasted years, these issues, so vital for the British economy and for Britain’s place in Europe at a critical time, are at last being addressed. Initial reactions from the EU Member States – in particular from France, Spain and Poland – have been largely positive in general terms. But the devil will very much be in the detail and necessary ‘trade-offs’.

The Government has triggered what is bound to be a long and complex process, particularly given the bad blood that has been spilled in the relationship over those ten fruitless years. At this stage it is hard, even unwise, to predict the final outcome. Several procedural hurdles need to be overcome, at both domestic and external level, before negotiations can get seriously under way: Burnham needs to get his party behind the new approach, ensure that it is included in the manifesto for the next general election, and above all, win that election outright or at least be in a position to form a government with like-minded pro-European forces if the result so dictates. Only then can he get down to serious business with the EU.

Burnham has proved himself to be an adroit communicator and it will now be largely up to him to demonstrate that, as seen both from Brussels and Westminster in their different ways, the positives outweigh the negatives in this new situation. The task will not be easy. Although rarely stated in public, the fragility and negativity of UK domestic politics has been noted with considerable concern in Brussels. They well know of Reform Party leader Nigel Farage after his lengthy tenure as a Member of the European Parliament and subsequent actions and statements, as well as his poll ratings. Nor has Brussels forgotten the way negotiations were mismanaged under successive governments, particularly under the Johnson administration, which damaged the UK’s reputation as a reliable partner. Warm words are not enough: it is now up to Andy Burnham to fundamentally transform and burnish Britain’s image in the chancelleries of Europe and the EU Commission.

The Prime Minister will also have to deal with another negative factor in the current European political landscape, but one for which in this case the UK bears no responsibility – the resurgence of authoritarian and nationalist-populist parties in many EU countries, not least in France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Romania. This will form an unavoidable backdrop to any UK attempt to place relations with the EU on a surer and mutually beneficial footing. Far-right parties across these countries all share, if to varying degrees, the ambition to reduce the powers and effectiveness of the EU. This depressing trend is likely to further complicate Burnham’s already challenging task. Nor are relations with the current President of the United States – a staunch opponent and critic of the EU and, at best, a fair-weather friend of the UK – likely to facilitate negotiations with the EU, although standing up to Trump may win Burnham plaudits in some quarters.

Nevertheless, one should not underestimate the positive benefits that Britain can bring to the table, particularly in defence and security and its significance as a ready market for mutually beneficial trade and economic cooperation. There are also specific opportunities in the fields of energy and emission trading (the carbon pricing system). It is often said that renewing relations with the EU ‘is all about trade-offs’. But given the unparalleled threats and challenges facing Europe and the UK, in order to renew and secure Britain’s relations with our closest trading partner, a fundamental change of emphasis is needed.

The world and the European continent have seen profound changes and grave developments since the Brexit referendum in 2016. The UK’s approach to renewing negotiations should reflect this changed landscape, and the need for a corresponding fresh approach on both sides. Rather than repeating the negative mantras of the past, both the EU and the UK should define their common challenges and consider how they can work together to address them in their mutual interest. The geostrategic interest should come first, followed by the necessary economic, trade and regulatory considerations. Britain’s approach should go beyond the purely transactional, given that fundamental principles and values – peace, freedom and democracy – are at stake. For the sake of future generations of Europeans, Britain and the European Union cannot afford to fail.

PS. One of Liverpool’s most famous sons, Paul McCartney, wrote the song ‘The Long and Winding Road’ and described it as ‘about the unattainable’ and ‘too emotionally charged’. It nevertheless went on to great critical acclaim and to sell millions of copies. Remainers and Rejoiners can only hope that Andy Burnham, no mean guitarist himself as we saw when playing recently with the Ukrainian soldier in Kyiv, has as much success in revitalising Britain’s relationship with the EU.

David Harley is a former EU diplomat, political communications consultant, and author. Posts held include Deputy Secretary-General of the European Parliament and Senior Advisor at the Brussels public affairs agency Burson Cohn & Wolfe. He holds a degree in Modern Languages from the University of Cambridge and a Diploma in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. In 2021 David published the transcription of his political diaries in ‘ Matters of Record – Inside European Politics’ and in 2022 co-edited ‘The Forgotten Tribe – British MEPs 1979-2020’. He is currently a member of the Foreign Policy Centre’s Advisory Board, and is a regular speaker and commentator on UK-EU relations.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the individual author and do not reflect the views of The Foreign Policy Centre.

Topics

International Relations and Geopolitics

Regions

European Union

United Kingdom

Op-ed | Conflict Prevention Has Never Been More Important

Article by Alex Ballinger MP and Alastair Carr

September 21, 2026

Op-ed | Conflict Prevention Has Never Been More Important

To mark the International Day of Peace (21 September), Alex Ballinger MP and Alastair Carr draw on Peace Works – a new report from a coalition of peacebuilding organisations – to argue that a more dangerous world requires the UK to protect the capacity to prevent conflict as well as respond to it.

In July 2011, the UK Government published its Building Stability Overseas Strategy, outlining three guiding principles for conflict prevention: early warning, rapid response and upstream prevention.^[1]

Fifteen years on, these principles endure, but the world they were written for is gone. The institutions and assumptions of the liberal international order have weakened and fragmented, replaced by unilateralism, ad hoc alliances, and the arbitrary exercise of hard power.

More countries are currently involved in conflict than at any point since World War Two. Some 117 million people find themselves displaced by war and persecution, while humanitarian disasters rage in Gaza, Sudan and Afghanistan. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought full-scale war to Europe. The US-Iran war, Israel’s campaigns and new Houthi offensives in Yemen risk dragging the Middle East into a messy, widening conflict zone.

Drones, cyber warfare, increasingly powerful AI systems, proxy networks and online disinformation have transformed how violence is waged, how far it can reach and how quickly it can spread, enhancing the lethality of superpower militaries and insurgent militias alike.^[2]

The UK, its NATO allies, and governments across the world have reacted to this more volatile, violent period by increasing defence spending and rebuilding military strength after the relative optimism and stability of the post-Cold War years. Reinvestment in defence reflects serious, credible threats and the need to act more independently of a more unpredictable and unilateral US. But firepower alone will not keep us safe, and deterrence will not, by itself, stop conflicts from emerging.

In today’s volatile world peacebuilding and conflict prevention are needed more than ever, but investment in this vital work has cratered. The UK’s aid budget is due to fall to 0.3% of national income by 2027/28, its lowest share since 1999. These reduced resources are increasingly focused on ongoing humanitarian crises in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan, and on accommodating refugees from these and other conflicts in the UK.

Prioritising current crises and people in urgent need is right and necessary. But neglecting conflict prevention, and the careful, local, long-term work of peacebuilding, carries real costs and risks for our security.^[3]

That’s because peacebuilding works. In a world of increasing budgetary pressures, it can be a cost-effective way of ending otherwise intractable conflicts.

Six years of mediation support by the British NGO Conciliation Resources helped the Ethiopian Government and the Ogaden National Liberation Front reach a peace agreement in 2018, ending more than two decades of armed conflict – an effort that cost less than the cost of a Challenger 2 tank. In the southern Philippines, the UK-backed International Contact Group supported talks that produced the 2014 agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which in turn led to a sharp fall in violence and mass displacement.^[4]

These examples are neither exact templates nor guarantees of success for future conflicts. Failures to prevent conflict and mass atrocities are infamous – Rwanda, Srebrenica, Darfur – while successes are easily forgotten, and inherently hard to quantify: the lives saved by an attack never happening, a militia staying out of a civil war, or a ceasefire that held.

However, the economic evidence for the cost effectiveness of prevention is strong: the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that every $1 invested in peacebuilding returns up to $103 in economic damage prevented and peaceful, productive activity enabled.^[5] These costs are not contained within warzones: the UK incurs costs from conflicts around the world, through energy market shocks, global shipping disruption, housing refugees displaced by war, and increased public spending on defence.

Conflict prevention and peacebuilding are not just cost-effective forms of aid. They are an indirect investment in our own economy – and democracy – reducing prices, public spending pressures, and the polarising political effects of migrant crises and foreign conflicts.^[6]

For all these reasons we believe the UK should enhance conflict prevention to a core component of foreign and security policy. That means giving peacebuilding and conflict prevention a demarcated, multi-year settlement, with funding allocations and priorities published in advance, and based on clear criteria. At present, these data are too often opaque and published retrospectively, leaving Parliament and civil society to reconstruct what has been spent, and why, long after decisions are made. Greater transparency would allow MPs, experts, and peacebuilding organisations to contribute to these decisions and provide constructive scrutiny.

Moreover, we should avoid a top-down, template approach to peacebuilding, directed from Westminster and Whitehall. What works better is tailoring UK strategies and programmes to specific communities, engaging with and listening to local stakeholders, and working through local organisations, wherever possible.

In 2023, less than 10% of peacebuilding funding from OECD donor countries went to local organisations and programmes, preferring large, multilateral institutions. Local peacebuilders bring knowledge and understanding of their communities and have the relationships and trust to effectively engage them in peacebuilding programmes. They are often best placed to analyse conflict, anticipate developments, and gauge the risks of escalation.

As such, their organisations would benefit from direct, flexible funding and the freedom to adapt as risks evolve. The Government’s commitment to ‘shift power and strengthen local leadership’ through its Global Partnerships Compact is an encouraging sign, suggesting decision-makers are beginning to recognise and adapt to these realities.^[7]

A more dangerous world requires robust defence, humanitarian relief, and the foresight to invest in peace before crises develop. Conflict prevention is crucial to our security, and doing it well requires political recognition, predictable resources, and putting trust in local peacebuilders and their approaches.

Alex Ballinger is the Labour MP for Halesowen, and has been an MP continually since 4 July 2024.

Alastair Carr is Policy Manager at Conciliation Resources. He joined Conciliation Resources in November 2022, to support the organisation’s work shaping counter-terrorism sanctions and developing policy messages on issues including gender, peace and security, mediation and dialogue and climate change and conflict. In this role, he is the co-chair of the Bond working group on Sanctions and Counterterrorism. Beforehand, Alastair spent five years at Saferworld, another UK-based peacebuilding organisation, where he supported donors, financial institutions and INGOs integrate and promote conflict sensitivity into their work in Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia. Alastair holds a Masters Degree in Violence, Conflict and Development from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the individual authors and do not reflect the views of The Foreign Policy Centre.

[1] UK Government, Building Stability Overseas Strategy, July 2011, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-stability-overseas-strategy

[2] Peace Works: How we can build peace together in our volatile world, September 2026, https://www.c-r.org/news-and-insight/new-coalition-report-shows-uk-government-how-peace-works.

[3] House of Commons Library, UK aid: Reducing spending to 0.3% of GNI by 2027/28, August 2026, https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10243/

[4] Conciliation Resources, Conciliation Resources nominated for prestigious international development award, May 2021, https://www.c-r.org/news-and-insight/conciliation-resources-nominated-prestigious-international-development-award; Conciliation Resources, International Contact Group on Mindanao, https://www.c-r.org/our-work-in-action/international-contact-group-mindanao

[5] Hannes Mueller, Christopher Rauh, Benjamin Seimon and Rodrigo Espinoza, The Urgency of Conflict Prevention: A Macroeconomic Perspective, IMF Working Paper, December 2024, https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2024/12/20/The-Urgency-of-Conflict-Prevention-A-Macroeconomic-Perspective-559143

[6] Peace Works: How we can build peace together in our volatile world, September 2026, https://www.c-r.org/news-and-insight/new-coalition-report-shows-uk-government-how-peace-works; UNHCR, Figures at a glance, June 2026, https://www.unhcr.org/about-unhcr/who-we-are/figures-glance

[7] Global Public Policy Institute, Peace and Security Aid in Crisis, July 2025, https://gppi.net/assets/GPPi_PeaceSecurityAidinCrisis_FullStudy2025_web.pdf.; Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, Global Partnerships Compact, May 2026, https://www.gov.uk/guidance/global-partnerships-conference-2026

Topics

Conflict Resolution and Security

Regions

United Kingdom

Long Read | The State of the UN

Article by Fred Carver

September 7, 2026

As the international order becomes increasingly fragmented, the United Nations appears weaker than it has for decades. But what has actually been lost, and what does the UN still provide that states cannot easily replace? Ahead of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly, Fred Carver examines what a weakened UN means for the UK and where the new Government should invest its political capital.

The United Nations (UN) is not in good shape, but it is worth considering a little more carefully what precisely it is that is not working, and what actually still is.

The UN delivers an extraordinary amount of development and humanitarian work. For a long time the organisation leaned into this aspect of its work because it showed tangible results.Yet commendable as much of this work is, it was not an irreplaceable function, and perhaps others are far better placed to deliver it. Donors, Trump foremost among them, are now demanding a drastic and rapid downgrading of this capability, resulting in much short-term pain and waste.

When people think about the UN, they mostly think about its role in setting standards and expectations for behaviour. Human rights is often called the “forgotten pillar” of the UN’s work, and receives less than 1% of the organisation’s funding, but it is perhaps its most irreplaceable function, and certainly the most visible.^[1] The UN’s standard setting role also extends well beyond the narrow field of human rights, providing a common language of diplomatic expectation across global cooperation and bringing predictability and process, particularly when it comes to conflict.

A lot has been written about how and when the UN can act in “binding” and “non-binding” ways. This is an important technical and legal distinction, but its political effect is exaggerated. As the UN’s work on apartheid in South Africa and decolonisation has shown, if enough states are willing to put enough political capital into implementing non-binding resolutions they can still have dramatic impacts, whereas when binding resolutions have no enforcement mechanisms, or when states have no interest in applying them, then the binding nature of those resolutions becomes moot – Israel colonisation of the West Bank, for instance, has taken place in the face of multiple “binding” Security Council resolutions over the decades.^[2]

The UN can therefore be thought of as the velvet rope of diplomacy. It cannot really stop anyone who wants to cross it from doing so, but nevertheless has an extraordinary ability to shape behaviour. However, as soon as some people start crossing it, everyone else does, and the rope ceases to serve any purpose beyond signalling that something is amiss.

Many would say that that is what has happened recently. Others would counter that the UN has never meaningfully constrained the behaviour of the world’s major powers – whether that be French or American actions in Vietnam, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, or the British and French invasion of Suez. A more nuanced view is that, while major powers have certainly ensured the uneven application of international law, they have at least played lip service to the concept, and tried to avoid too publicly and egregiously violating it for the most part (at least without some semblance of an excuse – however flimsy). They do so because they recognise how much they benefit from such a system, and it is this restraint that may now be lost. Others would place the departure from this approach earlier, with the US-UK invasion of Iraq rather than Trump’s exceptionalism or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There’s probably some truth to all of the above.

A System Designed for Another World

The UN was not necessarily intended to be a mere velvet rope. As the International Crisis Group expert Richard Gowan likes to point out, the UN Charter even allows for the creation of a UN air-force, and discusses at some length provisions to cut off rail, telephone, and postal connections to states that do not play ball.^[3] The UN was born out of the alliance that won World War II, and some participants saw it as a means to continue that alliance – or, as Frantz Fanon famously described it, the “card used by the imperialist interests when the card of brute force has failed.”^[4]

However, the organisation quickly became, and has continued to be, one that does not provide more than the softest of challenges to national sovereignty. This is largely because baked into the design of the organisation was a desire to avoid the fate of the League of Nations – which fell apart when powerful states walked away from it. By establishing itself as an organisation whose power to limit state behaviour is highly limited, the UN ensured that states remained bought into it. Such success as the UN has had, notably in preventing conflict between major powers, probably owes much to that.

The UN is, however, an organisation designed for a world we no longer live in. It is not just that the major powers of 1945 – whose privileges when it comes to preventing collective action are enshrined in the UN Charter – are no longer the major powers of 2026, it is that today’s distribution of global power is itself less clear. The US has recently very publicly demonstrated the limits of its ability to shape global politics, while China’s interest and ability to do so are still largely untested. The UN Security Council is therefore increasingly anachronistic. Africa remains underrepresented, as do major population centres such as India and Brazil, while former imperial powers such as Russia, the UK, and France retain permanent seats.

But it is an anachronism we are stuck with. The Security Council can veto its own reform, and none of the five permanent members – the US, the UK, Russia, China, or France – will willingly give up their privileges. And any that suggest otherwise do so knowing the others will ensure their bluff is never called.

The Security Council is increasingly ignored, but there is more to the UN. However, the other parts of the organisation, notably the General Assembly, have not really stepped up to fill the leadership gap. Meanwhile the Secretariat, who once upon a time showed incredible creativity and willingness to ask forgiveness rather than permission in pushing the limits of what the UN can do, has been ground down by resource constraints and fearful leadership into a culture of meek compliance. Perhaps this will change if and when a new Secretary-General is selected this autumn, but given it is the Security Council who largely decide upon the choice of Secretary-General we should not assume that the next Secretary-General will be a transformational figure.^[5]

All these things limit the UN’s ability to set standards, but do not abolish it entirely, and taking the UN down risks further constraining the good it can do. Even Vladimir Putin is not quite as unconstrained as he would be if the UN truly did not matter, in part because the UN still matters to him as one of the last remaining global institutions that still treats Russia like a global power.

The UN as a Venue, Not an Actor

The UN is perhaps best understood not as a political actor but as a venue in which political actors, primarily states, operate. Former US Ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke famously described blaming the UN for the Rwandan genocide as the equivalent of blaming Madison Square Gardens when the New York Knicks lose (neglecting to mention that in that analogy he would be a Knick who had missed a number of shots).^[6] The UN undoubtedly receives blame that should more rightly be directed at the states who behave so appallingly within it.

Nevertheless, forums do have a powerful ability to shape the conversations that take place within them, and it is here that the UN really has worth. It gives states somewhere to theatrically let off steam, forums in which states can meet and discuss on terms closer to equality, access to expertise and mediation, and processes through which negotiated outcomes can be validated in treaties or resolutions.

If the UN’s enduring value lies in providing a venue for diplomacy, the question is what kind of diplomacy remains possible in the current political climate. In January, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, during the World Economic Forum in Davos made a speech suggesting that the decline in our international system’s ability to set and impose standards probably did spell the death of a universalist rules-based global order in favour of more ad-hoc and transactional diplomacy.^[7] But transactionalism need not be value free or amount to might-makes-right. He emphasised the long-term value of consistency, reliability, predictability, cooperation in mutual self-interest, and the potential for collective action by the many to rein in the excesses of the mighty.

The problem is that, while there is undoubtedly a long-term net benefit to building a reputation as a reliable partner, few of our political economies currently reward taking the long-term beneficial option over the immediate return. There is a clear logic to such an approach, but little political reward. So far, we have seen little sign of this form of leadership.

The UN is undoubtedly in poor shape, but it is far from useless. It continues to provide the tools and location to allow states to conduct diplomacy in a more sustainable and reliable way, alongside mechanisms to uphold international standards that benefit us all. But it cannot compel states to make use of the international machinery it provides. You can lead a government to the negotiating room, but you cannot make them talk.

What Does this Mean for the UK?

The UK’s ability to affect change at or through the UN is hamstrung by the loss of one of the main sources of added value: its status as a development superpower.^[8] This also limits the resource base the UK can mobilise in order to help the UN pivot to its core areas of standard-setting and mediation. Nevertheless, in the context of global peace and security budgets, or even development budgets, these are relatively cheap functions. Often a major part of the difference between successful and failed peace processes has been external human rights monitoring with a cost in the low millions. Likewise effective mediation and peacebuilding work is similarly cheap but not free, and has been neglected in recent years.^[9] Relatively small, strategic, investments in resources to strengthen the UN’s monitoring and mediating functions could have a significant multiplier effect on the organisation’s effectiveness.

Meanwhile the UK’s political engagement needs to be sophisticated and context specific: it is neither the strongest nor the weakest state at the UN, and has neither the best nor the worst reputation. It can and should be confident and firm, as long as it does not sound arrogant or hypocritical. The UK can look to states that punch above their weight at the UN (among them Ireland, Spain, above all tiny Liechtenstein) who combine being useful, being principled (and thus predictable), and articulating a clear vision for the kind of global institution they want to see. Generally speaking British diplomats have done a reasonable job of displaying such sophistication in recent years, but it has not always been reflected by the political leadership in either their decisionmaking or their presentation on the global stage. Having senior political leaders genuinely invest time and interest in building a safer and more prosperous world for its own sake, and not merely to perform statesmanship for a domestic audience, is vitally necessary, if insufficient, first step.

Fred Carver is a Managing Director at Strategy for Humanity, which works with mission-driven organizations and those who fund them on a range of policy and strategy issues. He has written a number of articles on international relations, with specific expertise on the United Nations, Peacekeeping, Atrocity Prevention, civil wars and political violence. From 2011-2016 he ran the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice, a human rights NGO, and from 2016-2020 he was head of policy at UNA-UK, a UK campaigning organisation for multilateralism. Prior to that he worked as a researcher specialising in South Asia (primarily Pakistan) and in UK politics. He lives in Norway.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the individual author and do not reflect the views of The Foreign Policy Centre.

^[1] United Nations Association – UK, Strengthening the UN’s Human Rights Pillar, May 2025, https://una.org.uk/publication/think-piece-strengthening-the-uns-human-rights-pillar; Hilary Power, UN Financial Crisis Threatens to Halt Human Rights Work, Human Rights Watch, February 2026, https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/02/13/un-financial-crisis-threatens-to-halt-human-rights-work

^[2] UN Security Council, Resolution 446 (1979) (S/RES/446), United Nations, March 1979, https://docs.un.org/S/RES/446(1979)

^[3] Richard Gowan, Once Again, the U.N. Will Have to Adapt to Survive, World Politics Review, October 2025, https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/un-day-guterres-trump/

^[4] Frantz Fanon, Toward the African Revolution, trans. Haakon Chevalier, Grove Press, 1967, https://files.libcom.org/files/%5BFrantz_Fanon%5D_Toward_the_African_Revolution(BookZZ.org).pdf

^[5] Ben Donaldson and Fred Carver, Compromised Candidates: How backroom deals shape the race for secretary-general and prevent U.N. reform, Foreign Policy, July 2026, https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/07/28/united-nations-security-council-secretary-general-corruption-reform/

^[6] Samuel Moyn, Imperial Graveyard, London Review of Books, February 2020, https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n03/samuel-moyn/imperial-graveyard

^[7] World Economic Forum, Davos 2026: Special Address by Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, January 2026, https://www.weforum.org/stories/forum-institutional/davos-2026-special-address-by-mark-carney-prime-minister-of-canada/

^[8] United Nations Association – UK, Global Britain in the United Nations, February 2019, https://una.org.uk/publication/global-britain-in-the-united-nations/

^[9] United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services, Evaluation of the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia (IED-23-005), June 2023, https://oios.un.org/system/files/confidential-files/Reports/2023_ied_23_005.pdf; Ian Martin and Tamrat Samuel, Being Serious About Peace, PassBlue, August 2026, https://passblue.com/2026/08/30/being-serious-about-peace/

Topics

Good Governance and Institutional Reform

UN Reform

Long Read | Immigration Policy: The Backdoor to Transnational Repression

Article by Siena Anstis, Marcus Michaelsen and Kate Pundyk

August 3, 2026

Long Read | Immigration Policy: The Backdoor to Transnational Repression

Did the United States (US) help Iran track down its own dissidents?

On 7 July, the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund (IALDF) filed a lawsuit alleging exactly that. The Complaint alleges US immigration authorities shared confidential information about Iranian asylum seekers with the Iranian government to facilitate their removal from the United States. If substantiated, the allegations reveal more than an extraordinary instance of cooperation between geopolitical adversaries. They suggest that the US immigration system may have become a vehicle for transnational repression, enabling an authoritarian regime to reach dissidents beyond its borders.

As such, the case exposes a broader paradox: democratic governments present themselves as committed to countering transnational repression, yet their increasingly restrictive migration policies may be helping autocrats achieve precisely what those efforts seek to prevent.

The Complaint

The Complaint filed by IALDF in the US District Court for the District of Columbia alleges that, from March 2025, the Trump administration began sharing “confidential information from the immigration files of Iranians seeking asylum in the United States” directly with the Iranian government.^[1] It further alleges extensive cooperation between US and Iranian officials, including that “the U.S. government allowed the Iranian government to select the Iranians deported to Iran” (paragraph 42).

According to the complaint, this cooperation included sharing asylum file information, coordinating deportation flights, and facilitating in-person meetings between Iranian officials and Iranians detained in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities. IALDF states that many of those affected are “pro-democracy protestors, members of religious minorities such as Evangelical Christians, or members of the LGBTQ community” who sought refuge in the United States because of the dangers they faced in Iran. If disclosed, such sensitive information could enable the Iranian regime to further target these individuals, whether in the United States, following their return to Iran, or indirectly through family members who remain there.

Political Responses to Transnational Repression

Transnational repression arises where perpetrating states seek to intimidate, silence or otherwise target human rights defenders, journalists, political dissidents and other members of civil society beyond their own borders. The US is home to many individuals at risk of such practices, including Iranian asylum seekers. This overlap is no coincidence. Asylum seekers are often fleeing persecution because they have criticised or challenged authorities in their country of origin. As a result, many belong to the very groups most frequently targeted by transnational repression, making immigration systems an important part of efforts to protect them.

Under the Biden administration, the US government emerged as a global leader countering transnational repression through a “whole-of-government” approach that mobilised law enforcement, intelligence, diplomacy and cybersecurity agencies.^[2] It established dedicated reporting mechanisms, pursued criminal prosecutions, imposed sanctions and issued guidance to vulnerable communities.^[3] Ironically, current Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously co-sponsored a bill which would have expanded training for US immigration officials on transnational repression, including on “how foreign governments may try to coopt the immigration system.”^[4]

Other democratic governments have likewise come to recognise transnational repression as a threat to national security and state sovereignty. The Group of Seven (G7), in a public statement in 2025, described transnational repression as an “aggressive form of foreign interference” and adopted a common toolkit to strengthen and coordinate national responses.^[5] The United Kingdom alongside countries such as Canada and Australia have expanded law enforcement capacities and introduced new legislative instruments to better detect, investigate and prosecute acts of transnational repression.^[6] In June, the European Parliament similarly called on the Commission and the Member States to “identify, assess and mitigate structural vulnerabilities in EU and national administrative, legal and financial systems that may be exploited for transnational repression.”^[7]

Restrictive Immigration Policies and Transnational Repression

These initiatives reflect a growing consensus that countering transnational repression requires a coordinated response across government agencies. Yet one crucial area has largely escaped scrutiny: immigration policy. This omission may undermine positive steps taken to counter transnational repression.

Across the US and Europe, governments have embraced more restrictive immigration policies, prioritising deterrence, accelerated removals and closer cooperation with countries of origin. Such policies are driven by domestic concerns about migration and the increasing influence of right-wing and populist tendencies. Yet they also create opportunities for authoritarian governments to exploit immigration systems in host states against asylum seekers. As a result, the same governments that are investing resources in combating transnational repression are simultaneously pursuing immigration policies that can inadvertently facilitate it.

In the US, this dynamic extends beyond the alleged cooperation with Iran and is part of a broader anti-immigration policy shift. For example, US immigration enforcement is “turning its back” on individuals fleeing Russia, including defectors and anti-war critics.^[8] One prominent case is the detention of Kseniia Petrova, a Russian scientist who faced deportation after allegedly filing an improper customs declaration and feared return to Russia after having publicly criticised the invasion of Ukraine.^[9] A similar case arose with the Chinese dissident Guan Heng, who was threatened with deportation despite his role in exposing detention facilities in Xinjiang.^[10] At the same time, similar to the United Kingdom in 2022, the Trump administration has explored an agreement with the government of Rwanda to receive third-country deportations, disregarding Rwanda’s well-documented record as a prolific perpetrator of transnational repression.^[11]

The Cases of Germany and the United Kingdom

In the European Union, Germany illustrates the tension between responses to transnational repression and restrictive immigration policies. The current federal government has explicitly committed to combatting transnational repression.^[12] It has established dedicated task forces across key ministries and amended the German Criminal Code to strengthen penalties for crimes committed on behalf of a foreign government.^[13] However, these measures risk being compromised by the government’s promised “turnaround” in migration policy which comes with tightened border controls and asylum procedures.^[14] In June 2026, for example, authorities deported Tajik opposition activist Asadullo Boboev despite concerns that he faced persecution upon return.^[15] The Government also suspended humanitarian admission programs that previously provided safe pathways for journalists and others at risk from countries such as Russia, Belarus and Iran.^[16]

The United Kingdom presents a similar dynamic. While successive governments have demonstrated greater awareness of foreign states’ threats to national sovereignty and security, recent immigration reforms have prioritised deterrence and prolonged migrants’ legal precarity.^[17] The Conservative government’s proposal to externalise asylum processing to Rwanda, terminated by Labour in 2024, illustrated how migration control can conflict with protecting individuals at risk of political persecution.^[18]

More recently, a parliamentary report warned that politically motivated INTERPOL Red Notices issued by states such as China, Russia and Turkey can create “an automatic presumption of criminality”, affecting asylum and citizenship proceedings.^[19] Similar concerns have arisen in immigration cases involving Hong Kong democracy activists, among them Chloe Cheung, whose application for leave to remain was temporarily withheld because of criminal charges arising from her participation in the 2019 pro-democracy protests.^[20] Such cases show how immigration systems that fail to account for politically motivated prosecutions and other tactics of transnational repression aimed at punishing dissent risk becoming instruments of the very repression they claim to counter.

All these immigration policies were not adopted with transnational repression in mind. But these examples demonstrate how increasingly restrictive immigration policies can weaken protections for those living in exile and create opportunities for authoritarian governments to exert pressure across borders.

Fighting Transnational Repression Through a Whole-of-Government Approach

Authoritarian regimes quickly learn to weaponise the vulnerabilities created by host states’ immigration systems. Since September 2023, for instance, Belarus has denied its citizens abroad the ability to extend or renew their passports in Belarusian consulates.^[21] Unless host state authorities recognise the resulting protection gap and issue alternative identity documents, Belarusians abroad may be forced to return home to obtain valid documents, exposing them to arrest or persecution. The Associated Press documented this dilemma in Germany, where one Belarusian exile explained: “I have a terrible choice to make: become an illegal immigrant in Germany, or return to Belarus, where I will probably be arrested.”^[22] This tactic is not unique. Freedom House has documented at least 12 countries, including Saudi Arabia and China, that strategically withhold consular services from dissidents or targeted groups to force them to return home.^[23]

Against this backdrop, the complaint filed by IALDF is but one illustration of the broader problem: states are fighting transnational repression without addressing the role their own immigration policies play in perpetuating it. Immigration authorities necessarily collect sensitive information about asylum seekers and routinely cooperate with countries of origin over identity verification, travel documents, and removals. However, as the political environment shifts to prioritise “migration control” over refugee protection, the incentives for the removal and deterrence of migrants are increasing. Administrative cooperation with authoritarian countries of origin, once constrained by concerns about persecution, becomes a convenient tool for achieving such objectives. The result is perhaps not necessarily an intention to facilitate transnational repression, but a growing willingness to engage in arrangements that perpetrator states can exploit.

Addressing this paradox requires governments to recognise that immigration policy is a central battleground in the fight against transnational repression. Measures of border externalisation, such as offshore processing, trap people fleeing persecution in third countries under weak rule of law, where authorities may be more willing to cooperate with perpetrator states.^[24] Lengthy and uncertain asylum procedures also discourage victims from reporting threats to law enforcement for fear of jeopardising their immigration status. Therefore, individuals at heightened risk of transnational repression should benefit from additional safeguards, including expedited asylum procedures, robust due diligence before information is shared with countries of origin and strict limits on cooperation that could expose them to repression. Host states should also issue travel documents to individuals unable to obtain them from their countries of origin because of political persecution or blacklisting. Finally, immigration officials need better training to identify and respond to transnational repression.

For the new UK Government, these safeguards should form part of the implementation of its wider immigration reforms.^[25] As the Burnham government with Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood proceeds with changes to the asylum and settlement system, it should ensure that immigration authorities are equipped to identify victims of transnational repression, recognise politically motivated criminal proceedings and avoid administrative cooperation that could expose individuals to persecution by the states they sought to escape.^[26]

More fundamentally, a comprehensive response to transnational repression requires confronting an uncomfortable truth: restrictive immigration and asylum policies leave open a backdoor that governments engaging in transnational repression readily exploit. Host states cannot claim to counter repression across borders while ignoring the role their immigration policies play in enabling it.

Siena Anstis is a PhD fellow in law at the University of Oslo and a senior legal advisor and senior researcher at the Citizen Lab (University of Toronto).

Dr. Marcus Michaelsen is a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab (University of Toronto).

Kate Pundyk is a researcher at the Citizen Lab (University of Toronto) and a JD candidate at McGill University.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the individual authors and do not reflect the views of The Foreign Policy Centre. (more…)

Topics

Human Rights

Tackling Transnational Repression

Op-ed | A Camel Called the Investor Visa

Article by Matthew McGlynn

July 29, 2026

Op-ed | A Camel Called the Investor Visa

The UK Government is reportedly considering the reintroduction of an investor visa for high-net-worth individuals. In this op-ed, Matthew McGlynn examines the economic, security and anti-corruption implications of reviving a scheme that was closed in 2022.

There is an old line that a camel is a horse designed by committee. The Starmer Government reported plans to revive an investor visa – invite-only, £5 million minimum, enhanced vetting, a three-year path to settlement – are the embodied camel.^[1] The scheme is too narrow and too expensive to compete with its international counterparts, but also too toxic for a country still trying to shake off its ‘Londongrad’moniker. The Burnham Government would do well to simply scrap this idea.

At £5 million, the entry price is roughly ten times the United Arab Emirates’ ten-year golden visa, 20 times Portugal’s €250,000 residency route, and five times President Trump’s transactional “gold card”. Yet however high the bar, the headline writes itself: Britain is back in the business of selling residency. This is not a policy, it is a compromise between Whitehall’s perennial clash between the security and prosperity departments which will satisfy neither.

The politics are stranger still. In opposition, Labour were among the loudest critics of the Tier 1 (Investor) route accusing the Conservative Government of a “totally inadequate response” to the “very serious corruption and criminality concerns” the scheme raised.^[2] They demanded answers on how many golden visas had been revoked and how many holders had been waved through to citizenship. In government, Labour’s own Anti-Corruption Strategy commits the UK to “continue to tackle abuse of residency or citizenship by investment schemes” in other countries.^[3] One cannot credibly tackle abroad what one is reintroducing at home.

So why the U-turn? The answer may be about worries over the UK’s weak growth and concerns about a receding tax base among high-net worth individuals although some of the evidence for this has been challenged in certain quarters.^[4] Whatever is driving wealth from Britain, it is not the absence of a visa for sale.

I write with some scar tissue here. As a Home Office official, I was part of the long, torturous process of shutting the Tier 1 route in 2022, a closure that took the Salisbury poisonings, an aborted 2018 suspension, an internal review that sat unpublished for years, and ultimately a looming Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine to force over the line.^[5] Schemes like this are easy to open and agonising to close.

The underlying economic case has never survived contact with evidence so it is for good reason that the Treasury are said to be sceptical about its potential for economic growth.^[6] Our international partners like Australia, Ireland and Spain have all shut down their investor visa regimes in recent years.^[7] The IMF is blunter still, calling the abuses of such schemes – through corruption, money laundering, tax evasion – “widely documented”.^[8] The mooted proposal tries to engineer around this by directing capital into priority sectors and pre-screening applicants through an invite-only gate. To follow the scheme’s logic, if the regime is genuinely confined to a vetted handful of ultra-wealthy individuals investing in growth sectors, the aggregate sums will be a rounding error against the UK’s investment needs, and the individuals in question would already have ample visa routes available. A scheme too small to move the economic dial but large enough to revive the brand of Britain-for-sale begs the question: what is the point beyond a “pro-growth” press release? Trump’s gold card is the cautionary tale: launched to predictions of hundreds of billions in revenue, it had attracted 338 applications and a single lucky winner by this spring.^[9] If the world’s wealthy will not pay $1 million for America, the queue for Britain at £5 million will be short indeed.

While the upsides are unclear, the risks are not. The UK has spent considerable resources trying to shed its reputation as a host to the world’s dirty money and become a standard-setter on illicit finance through sanctions innovation, beneficial ownership transparency or the economic crime acts. The upcoming Illicit Finance Summit is the latest example of the UK seeking a leading role. It now risks falling a step behind the European Commission, which fought and won a landmark case against Malta’s golden passport scheme in April 2025, with the Court of Justice ruling that citizenship “cannot result from a commercial transaction”.^[10] The Commission’s opposition is one of principle, and it is well founded: this is a cowboy-ridden industry. Cyprus scrapped its programme after undercover footage showed officials offering to launder a fictitious convicted criminal into EU citizenship. Vanuatu lost its EU visa-free access over discount passports sold with negligible checks. Malta naturalised “residents” who spent barely weeks on the island. Britain re-entering this market hands a talking point to every jurisdiction that the UK lectures on dirty money. The timing makes it worse: the Financial Action Task Force, the global anti-money laundering standard setter, which has warned against the risks of investment-residency schemes, will shortly begin its review of the UK.^[11] Reopening a route closed on security grounds, on the eve of inspection, invites a finding no government wants to read.

The conclusion that new ministers should reach is the simplest one: don’t. If the goal is investment, the levers are unglamorous but proven: planning reform, competitive treatment of genuinely active entrepreneurs, and visa routes that prize talent rather than wealth. The UK’s actual investment proposition is the rule of law, liquid markets, and institutions that cannot be bought. A visa that puts a price on residency corrodes precisely the asset it is trying to sell.

All told, you might say it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a golden visa regime to pass the “Makerfield Test” the new Prime Minister has set. The natural conclusion is to send this camel back to the committee.

Matthew McGlynn is a consultant specialising in Russia and illicit finance, following close to a decade of operational and policy experience in the UK Government. Matthew led the Home Office’s work on international illicit finance for over five years including its work to tackle Russian illicit finance in the UK.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the individual author and do not reflect the views of The Foreign Policy Centre.

^[1] Benjamin Stupples, UK Explores ‘Invite-Only’ Investor Visa With £5 Million Cost, Bloomberg, May 2026, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-19/uk-weighs-invite-only-investor-visa-with-5-million-price-tag

^[2] BBC News, ‘Golden visas’ for wealthy investors linked to corruption review finds, January 2023, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64250182

^[3] HM Governmnet, UK Anti-Corruption Strategy 2025, December 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6932caa7375aee4a15ee8c8c/36.37_HO_JACU-Strategy_v12b_FINAL_WEB.pdf

^[4] Peter Munro, Our letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer: Investor visas risk rolling out the red carpet to kleptocrats, criminals, and spies, UK Anti-Corruption Coalition, July 2025, https://www.ukanticorruptioncoalition.org/work/kwr577ner07dvlc0qobg2184it1tmh

^[5] Home Office and The Rt Hon Priti Patel MP, Tier 1 Investor Visa route closes over security concerns, Gov.uk, February 2022, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/tier-1-investor-visa-route-closes-over-security-concerns

^[6] Financial Times, UK government split over new ‘golden visa’ scheme to woo super-rich, June 2026, https://www.ft.com/content/7ec350b9-ba64-4dc5-bc0c-7719cae58dcd?syn-25a6b1a6=1

^[7] Brendan Coates, Trent Wiltshire, Tyler Reysenbach, Australia’s migration opportunity: how rethinking skilled migration can solve some of our biggest problems, Grattan Institute, December 2022, https://grattan.edu.au/report/australias-migration-opportunity-how-rethinking-skilled-migration-can-solve-some-of-our-biggest-problems/; Hugh O’Connell and Sarah Collins, Ireland shutting down ‘golden visa’ investment-for-residence scheme amid concerns about unvetted applicants, Irish Independent, February 2023, https://www.independent.ie/business/irish-business/ireland-shutting-down-golden-visa-investment-for-residence-scheme-amid-concerns-about-unvetted-applicants/a/134321593.html; Elena Giordano, Spain to scrap cash-for-visas scheme, Politico, April 2024, https://www.politico.eu/article/spain-golden-visa-scrapped-pedro-sanchez/

^[8] Francisca Fernando, Jonathan Pampolina, and Robin Sykes, Citizen for Sale, International Monetary Fund, Summer 2021, https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2021/06/citizenship-for-sale-fernando-pampolina-sykes.htm

^[9] Robert Frank, Trump’s $1 million ‘Gold Card’ fails to catch on among the world’s wealthy, CNBC, May 2026, https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/08/trump-gold-card-wealth.html

^[10] Pia Engelbrecht-Bogadanov, EU Court of Justice puts an end to harmful citizenship-by-investment schemes, Transparency International EU, April 2025, https://transparency.eu/eu-court-of-justice-puts-an-end-to-harmful-citizenship-by-investment-schemes/

^[11] FATF and OECD, Misuse of Citizenship and Residency by Investment Programmes, November 2023, https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/reports/Misuse-CBI-RBI-Programmes.pdf.coredownload.pdf

Topics

Regions

United Kingdom

Beyond the Ballot Box: Democracy Is What Happens Between Elections

Article by Liliana Gutan

July 23, 2026

Beyond the Ballot Box: Democracy Is What Happens Between Elections

Democracy, for me, means accountable institutions anchored in the rule of law. It is not just about elections. Rather, it is everything that happens between elections to ensure people have access to three core values: dignity, safety, and a sense of belonging to a healthy and free society.

Moldova is experiencing the ruptures in the international rules-based order deeply. As Ukraine’s neighbour, we are close to the frontline of its efforts to defend its sovereignty and European security. From the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion, we have faced threats to our own security, concerted efforts to undermine our democratic institutions, and a huge influx of refugees.^[1]

Moldova is a small country of 2.6 million people, yet in the first months of the war we hosted nearly one million Ukrainian refugees. Our society has not fractured – and Moldovan civil society has been instrumental in sustaining that cohesion, working alongside government and international partners.

The bravery and resilience shown by both Ukrainians and Moldovans is a source of hope. Ukraine continues to resist Russian aggression. And despite unprecedented Russian misinformation and interference in the 2024 EU referendum and our presidential and parliamentary elections, Moldova remains on the path towards EU integration.^[2]

But we should not take our democracy, or public support for it, for granted.

Leaders say that we are living in a complex and chaotic world. Yet acknowledging this complexity is far from enough. We need our leaders to develop a realistic vision rooted in the value of human life – and to calibrate their promises to people’s basic expectations. This requires the courage to listen to what the electorate tells them, especially when they are saying they need to live safe, dignified, and meaningful lives.

I believe the first expectation is to maintain peace and security. This is the core request any population makes of its leaders. The second is sustainable development, which means development rooted in democratic values. These are the foundations upon which citizens choose to place their trust in elected representatives and institutions.

Accountability when It matters most

At the same time, in any healthy democracy, our leaders need to hold themselves accountable to high ethical standards, transparency, and respect for the rule of law. These principles matter most when they are politically inconvenient, and when applying them carries a cost. There can be no exceptions.

Democratic resilience cannot be measured only by how institutions respond to national crises. It must also be measured by how they respond to individual citizens in moments of vulnerability. An investigation into the death of Ludmila Vartic, in March 2026, is one such test – and it goes to the heart of what democratic accountability means in practice.^[3] Ludmila was a mother of two and kindergarten teacher in Hâncești, who committed suicide after years of domestic abuse. Her husband held public office and carried a party card from the governing party. The criminal investigation was opened only after sustained pressure from her family. Dumitru Vartic was eventually charged with domestic violence resulting in death. The case remains ongoing.

Ludmila’s case highlights the wider societal problem of violence against women and girls in Moldova – a problem not unique to Moldova, but faced by societies around the world. It underscores the need for a more effective and consistent response from the state. A society that tolerates violence against women is not a society that offers freedom, safety, and dignity to all its citizens.

Moldova has the necessary legislation in place. It has ratified international conventions on violence against women. The question raised by the Vartic case is therefore not whether legal protections exist, but whether they are applied equally and consistently, regardless of who is implicated.

Accountability cannot be a selective virtue. Too often, in Moldova as elsewhere, politicians invoke democratic principles loudly from opposition and quietly set them aside once in office. The real measure of democratic maturity is not what leaders promise before they reach power – it is what they do when the inconvenient moment arrives: when the accused is an ally, when the investigation touches their own circle, when acting on principle carries a political cost. That is the moment that defines whether a democracy is real or merely performed.

The strongest argument Moldova can make for its European future is not the declarations its leaders make in Brussels. It is what its institutions do for people like Ludmila Vartic.

Moldova is at the most consequential moment in its post-Soviet history – granted EU candidate status in 2022, with accession negotiations opened in 2024. Some argue this is not the moment to risk destabilisation. I reject that framing: a democracy built on selective accountability is not one that Europe should admit, nor one that will endure.

The Vartic case is a reminder that democracy’s credibility is always being tested – not in grand moments of constitutional design, but in the ordinary and often painful questions of whether institutions show up for people when it matters. Moldova has demonstrated, through its response to the refugee crisis, that a society can hold together under extraordinary pressure when the conditions of dignity, belonging, and security are actively maintained. But these conditions are not self-sustaining. They require leadership that is honest enough to acknowledge when they are being undermined – and institutions willing to take action in response.

What democracy requires

Moldova’s experience is not unique. Across this series, contributors have approached these questions from different angles but arrived at a comparable place: that trust erodes slowly before it breaks visibly; that what autocrats destroy first is not infrastructure but dignity, memory, and the capacity for agency; that disengagement is rarely apathy – it is fear. The formal architecture of democracy rests on foundations that are human before they are political. When people lack security, dignity, and belonging, no institutional design recovers them. When they have them, extraordinary things become possible.

The work ahead is not to restore a model that has run its course. It is to understand, honestly, what people actually need to live free and meaningful lives – and to build the political, cultural, and civic conditions in which that becomes possible.

That requires courage: the courage to listen, as much as the courage to speak. And the courage to collaborate across diversity and divides.

Democracy, in the end, is not defined only by what happens on election day. It is defined by what happens every day.

Explore the full mini-series here.

Liliana Gutan is a 2010 John Smith Fellow from Moldova. In her capacity as a member of the National Secretariat responsible for the successful implementation of these initiatives, the focus of Liliana’s work over the last three years has been on the Moldovan Chairmanships. This includes the organisation of numerous regional high level meetings, summits and conferences.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the individual author and do not reflect the views of The Foreign Policy Centre.

^[1] Benedicta Solf and Casey O’Neill, Moldova Shoulders Disproportionately Large Ukrainian Population, in the Shadow of the European Union and Russia, Migration Policy Institute, December 2025, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/moldova-ukrainian-refugees

^[2] Stephen McGrath, Moldova narrowly votes to secure path toward EU membership after accusing Russie of interference, AP News, October 2024, https://apnews.com/article/moldova-elections-eu-referendum-russia-325cb2c13beb1d76565a6e2aadef971a; Claire Gilbody Dickerson, ‘Massive’ election interference by Russia, Moldovan officials say in decisive presidential vote, Sky News, November 2024, https://news.sky.com/story/massive-election-interference-by-russia-moldovan-officials-say-in-decisive-presidential-vote-13247385; Sarah Rainsford and Paul Kirby, Moldova’s pro-EU party wins vote mired in claims of Russian interference, BBC News, September 2025, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2rdlj8ejgo

^[3] Moldpres, Head of State on domestic violence and Ludmila Vartic case: We need justice, not speculation, May 2026, https://www.moldpres.md/eng/society/head-of-state-on-domestic-violence-and-ludmila-vartic-case-we-need-justice-not-speculation

Topics

Civil Society

Human Rights

Rule of Law

Regions

Moldova

Resistance Is Not Enough: Rethinking the Belarusian Democratic Movement

Article by Palina Brodik

July 22, 2026

Resistance Is Not Enough: Rethinking the Belarusian Democratic Movement

A turning point is approaching for the Belarusian Democratic Forces, which emerged in response to the rigged presidential elections in 2020. They have begun to lose momentum after six years of tireless advocacy for democratic change – and it is time for the movement to have a serious conversation about its current shape and strategic direction.

Negotiations between the US and Belarusian authorities, which resulted in the release of hundreds of political prisoners, have deepened divisions within the movement into two opposing camps: the supporters of the hard-pressure approach that allows no compromise until the regime is defeated, and the proponents of a flexible approach that accepts limited concessions as a means of securing incremental gains. This dilemma revealed much more than differences in tactics. It exposed a rupture around the fundamental question: what kind of political actor must the democratic movement become if it is to reclaim Belarus? Every geopolitical shift — negotiations over prisoners, the end of the war in Ukraine, changing Western priorities — will only deepen the divisions and further delay the prospect of returning home.

The divide therefore runs deeper than tactics. It highlighted the very qualities that have sustained the movement over the past six years. Since 2020, it has drawn strength from shared memory, moral clarity, and organisational durability in the face of repression, exile and war. These qualities were essential for survival, but are insufficient for development.

Resistance preserves identity under pressure. However, it offers little guidance on how to prevail against a regime that has repeatedly proven more violent, adaptable, and strategically agile. Resilience, by contrast, requires the capacity to adapt without losing that identity. The question, then, is whether the movement has mistaken preserving its existing form for the ability to evolve — confusing resilience for resistance, organisational visibility for political viability.

Rebuilding political viability requires restoring three capacities that both repression and geopolitical turbulence have gradually eroded.

1. Continuity of political meaning beyond the life-span of the current movement. Belarus has experienced three major waves of democratic mobilisation in the 21^st century alone: in 2006, 2010, and 2020. Yet the history of the movement for our independence and European orientation goes back centuries. The regime does its best to break the chain of memory by obliterating historical milestones and replacing them with a state-sponsored narrative centred solely on the “Great Patriotic War”. Sometimes we contribute to this ourselves: each new generation believes the predecessors are not worth exploration if they have not succeeded – and they eventually replenish the ranks themselves. Yet democratic movements survive not through uninterrupted victories but through continuity of meaning. Otherwise every new mobilisation begins from zero.

2. The second capacity is autonomous political agency. Operating in exile, the movement naturally relies on international support. However, agency should not be built on external validation alone, such as through meetings with foreign country leaders and participation at global political fora. Legitimacy cannot be outsourced. A political actor that increasingly depends on outside confirmation is vulnerable to changing geopolitical priorities. And vice versa — it stays democratic and durable as long as it embodies the interests of the people it seeks to serve. No amount of international recognition can substitute for a living connection between democratic actors and the people they seek to serve.

3. Third, and perhaps most demanding of all, is the capacity for self-reflection and, consequently, adaptation. It requires honesty about our successes and failures, an awareness about the changing context, and acknowledging our structural limits to prevent us from falling into obsolete ways of thinking. Democratic movements fail not only when they lose their values, but also when they become unable to distinguish those values from the strategies once used to defend them. The former should endure; the latter should evolve. Сonfusing the two turns adaptation into betrayal and criticism into disloyalty. It takes a lot of courage to be intellectually and emotionally honest with oneself and to be able to admit the necessity of revision. But it is an important marker of a movement’s political maturity and a precondition for further growth.

Democratic movements can survive organisationally while collapsing politically. The Belarusian Democratic Forces risk precisely this: preserving their form while losing the capacity to act as a genuine political subject. This also has implications for foreign engagement: support is most effective when it contributes to adaptive political capacity rather than reinforcing institutional visibility.

To prevent the negative scenario, the movement should return to the fundamental question that structures this argument — what kind of political actor must the movement become if it is to shape Belarus’s future rather than be shaped by the country’s decline and shifting geopolitical realities?

Explore the full mini-series here.

Palina Brodik is co-founder and director of the Free Belarus Center, a member of the Coordination Council of Belarus and an official CCB delegate to the Congress of Regional and Local Authorities under the Council of Europe. Palina has over a decade of experience in human rights and election observation. She has collaborated with organisations including UNDP in Ukraine and Belarus, the US-based Advocates for Human Rights, and the Center for Civil Liberties and has taken part in international and domestic election observation missions. She has coordinated the Eastern European edition of the Personal Democracy Forum and the Ostrogski Forum, as well as four seasons of the festival of Belarusian culture and activism “Hučna Fest”.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the individual author and do not reflect the views of The Foreign Policy Centre.

Topics

Civil Society

Democracy and Elections

Human Rights

Regions

Belarus

Civil Society Organisations Are Losing the Narrative War – How Can Trust Be Rebuilt?

Article by Joldoshbek Osmonov

July 20, 2026

Civil Society Organisations Are Losing the Narrative War – How Can Trust Be Rebuilt?

Civil society is how citizens can hold power to account. But what happens when organisations that exist to defend democratic life are no longer trusted to do so?

In functioning democracies, the answer barely needs asking. Transparent government, free expression, the right to challenge power and insist on the truth, all depend on a civil society that people believe in. It is through civil society that citizens engage with one another, mobilise in times of need, protect human rights, and advocate for change. When that belief erodes, so does the accountability it sustains.

For authoritarian governments, this erosion is not a problem. It is a strategy.

We are living in a time of profound uncertainty. The international rules-based order is no longer guaranteed. As authoritarianism and populism gain ground and democratic values come under pressure, civil society finds itself on the front line – and the forces working against it are organised and deliberate.

Propaganda, legal threats, and institutional failings are making civil society more vulnerable

Kyrgyzstan is a clear example of how civil society can become vulnerable. In April 2024, the country passed a law on ‘foreign representatives’, requiring NGOs that receive foreign funding to register with the government – echoing Russia’s and Georgia’s foreign agent laws, though without the same criminal liability.^[1] This reflects a broader trend: growing authoritarianism and a shrinking civic space that make it harder for citizens and organisations to speak out.

Kyrgyzstan is not an isolated case. Across countries like Russia, Belarus, Georgia, and other Central Asian countries, the pattern is the same: governments are using legal pressure and narrative control to delegitimise the organisations that hold them accountable. In Russia, organised civil society and NGOs have been systematically portrayed as a threat to traditional values and national identity – and that same propaganda playbook is being exported across the region, eroding credibility of civil society organisations beyond its borders.

The threat is not solely external however. Parts of the NGO sector have been undermining their own credibility by remaining overly donor-centric, lacking transparency and failing to communicate their work and impact effectively to the public.

The effect of this sustained pressure on civil society and internal shortcomings is a loss of trust. People no longer believe that civil society organisations tell the truth, stand for something, or have anything meaningful to offer.

And when the connection between people and civil society breaks down, civil society can no longer fulfil its democratic function. The gap between organisations and the communities they exist to serve becomes a gap that weakens democracy.

So how should civil society respond?

Some of the challenges are practical: funding, legal pressure, hostile information environments. But the deeper challenge is rebuilding trust and relevance. Old approaches and instruments are no longer enough. Civil society organisations need to think critically about how they are reaching people, how they come across, and whether they truly understand the context in which they operate.

Starting internally: transparency, accountability, and effectiveness are vital. Suspicions that NGOs are ineffective or opaque are widespread, and organisations need to take this seriously. Trust is rebuilt through actions, not just communication.

Yet internal renewal is only half the work. The deeper challenge is rebuilding the connection with communities – and that begins with an honest reckoning about how that connection was lost in the first place. It means going to where people already are: the school gate, the local market, the community group, the places where trust is built through presence rather than broadcast. It means speaking in a language that people recognise and not jargon that requires explaining. And it means reducing financial dependence on external donors by developing more diversified, locally rooted funding – through the public sector, social entrepreneurship, and direct community support.

Organisations need to be clear about both the work they do and what they stand for. The issues that civil society organisations address are often the issues that matter to people. When organisations can clearly demonstrate their relevance and impact, trust becomes easier to build and sustain.

Finally, where possible, constructive dialogue with governments should not be abandoned. Civil society organisations should seek to cooperate on practical, less politically contested challenges, building confidence and relationships before attempting to address more difficult issues.

What leaders need in this moment

Civil society may be losing the narrative battle – but that does not mean war is lost. Leaders need a clear-eyed understanding of how we got here and what is at stake.

The forces working against democracy and civil society – authoritarianism, populism, propaganda, misinformation – are organised, deliberate, and adaptive. Responding to these forces requires not just resilience, but the willingness to change: to be honest about failure, to engage with people where they are, and to earn trust rather than assume it.

The goal is not simply to survive. It is to rebuild the kind of civil society that people feel belongs to them, one that reflects their concerns, speaks to their realities, and importantly, one that they would fight to defend.

Ultimately, trust cannot be demanded, it must be earned, sustained, and renewed over time.

Explore the full mini-series here.

Joldoshbek Osmonov is the team leader of the Civic Engagement for Development Project in Kyrgyzstan funded by the Swiss Development Agency. He has extensive work experience in international development organisations, think tanks, and the civil society sector and possesses strong expertise in civil society, governance, public policy, and local politics. Joldoshbek holds a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Pennsylvania, the United States, and BA in international relations from the American University of Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the individual author and do not reflect the views of The Foreign Policy Centre.

^[1] Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, April 2024, Law Targeting Foreign-Funded NGOs Sends Chill Through Kyrgyz Civil Society, https://www.rferl.org/a/kyrgyzstan-foreign-agents-chill/32893000.html

Topics

Civil Society

Regions

Kyrgyzstan

No Shortcuts to Trust: Education, Civic Habits, and Social Resilience in Central Asia

Article by Farrukh Irnazarov

In Central Asia, citizens have not simply lost faith in institutions. They have stopped expecting institutions to deserve it.

Citizens are curious about reform, transparency, opportunity, participation, and modernisation. However, their everyday experience may be shaped by uneven services, opaque decision-making, limited civic space, or institutions that respond more readily to status than to need. And yet the instinct is to treat this as something politics alone can fix. It cannot. Trust is not primarily a political product; it is a learned disposition.

In such an environment, ‘leading by example’ is not a soft moral appeal. It is the structural basis of credibility. Where authority is culturally important, public conduct carries unusual weight; people watch whether officials, educators, business leaders, and civic actors behave according to the standards they ask others to accept. Trust is built when words and actions repeatedly meet.

Education as democratic infrastructure

Trust is too often treated as a political problem to be solved only by policy: new laws, new strategies, new platforms, or new communications campaigns. These matter, but they are not enough. People learn, often early, whether cooperation is safe, whether disagreement is dangerous, whether success requires domination, and whether institutions deserve patience when they make mistakes. Education is therefore the overlooked foundation of democratic resilience, not because schools can replace politics, but because they form the habits of mind that make healthy politics possible.

This requires thinking about education more broadly than curriculum reform. It means treating classrooms, youth programmes, universities and informal learning spaces as laboratories of social behaviour. One powerful mechanism is gamification – designing learning environments that teach the logic of mutual gain. This is not about points and prizes. It is about showing young people, through experience, that achievement and contribution are not opposites. Too much public life is organised around zero-sum instincts: if one group advances, another must lose; if one entrepreneur succeeds, society has been exploited; if one community receives attention, another has been forgotten.

A better educational design can show young people that achievement and contribution are not opposites. A student can ‘win’ by building a business model that also solves a local problem. A team can score higher when it helps another team improve. A simulated city, school budget, or environmental challenge can reward cooperation, long-term thinking and shared benefits rather than only individual victory.

This matters in Central Asia because social cohesion cannot be imported through abstract democratic language. The region’s histories, hierarchies, kinship networks, respect for elders, and expectations of authority differ from Western European civic models. A copied template may sound progressive while failing to speak to local trust dynamics. Gamified education can translate democratic habits into lived experience: negotiation, responsibility, reciprocity, compromise, and service. It can show that success does not have to mean someone else’s defeat. That lesson, absorbed early, is a quiet defence against polarisation later.

A second mechanism is debate culture. Debate is not simply public speaking, nor is it the performance of defeating an opponent. At its best, it teaches a harder civic discipline: to hold a position firmly while remaining genuinely open to being changed by another argument. This is one of the deepest foundations of democratic life. A person who has practiced fair debate learns that disagreement is not betrayal, that criticism is not always an attack, and that losing an argument need not mean losing dignity. In societies where authority is often protected from challenge, debate culture can create respectful forms of questioning. It does not require young people to reject elders, institutions or tradition. It teaches them how to examine claims, ask for evidence and recognise complexity without collapsing into cynicism.

The difficulty is that most policy thinking moves in the opposite direction. It is top-down, structural and short-cycle. Governments and donors want measurable outcomes within a funding period. NGOs, especially in Central Asia, often work with precarious financing and constrained civic space, which pushes them toward safe projects, narrow indicators, and cautious language. But trust grows slowly. It needs continuity, repetition, and relationships. A three-month campaign cannot undo years of suspicion. A digital platform cannot substitute for credible behaviour. The most important work may be the least visible: a teacher who models fairness, a youth mentor who allows disagreement, a local project that proves cooperation can produce real results.

Technology, trust and democratic resilience

Technology intensifies both the problem and the possibility. Disinformation widens the gap between rhetoric and reality. It makes it harder for leaders to maintain credibility and harder for citizens to know what deserves belief. In information environments shaped by rumours, propaganda, influencer politics and fragmented media, distrust can become self-protective: people stop believing not only false claims but also true ones. This is especially dangerous in societies where institutional trust is already fragile.

However, technology should not be treated only as a threat. In Central Asia, its effects are already mixed. Kazakhstan’s eGov system, for example, has shown how digital public services can reduce everyday friction between citizens and the state: when people can access documents, payments or applications online without relying on personal connections or opaque bureaucracy, technology can make institutions feel more predictable and less distant. Yet the same region has also shown the limits of digital trust, especially when online spaces are shaped by disinformation, surveillance fears, or sudden restrictions on access. The point is not to promise technological salvation. The point is to try low-risk, low-cost experiments – digital debate clubs, local problem-solving games, transparent community budgeting tools, media-literacy simulations, or platforms that allow citizens to track small public commitments – and to learn honestly from failure. Even attempting imperfect solutions can build trust when the process is transparent. People do not need institutions that never fail. They need institutions that admit limits, correct mistakes, and keep showing up.

In a region with civic actors may face pressure, where respect matters, where authority is personal as well as formal and where young people are navigating both traditional and global digital culture – this is not an abstract principle. Trust between citizens, communities, and institutions must be built from where people actually stand. Education, in this wider sense, is where the bridge can begin.

The African proverb captures the choice: “if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together”. Trust cannot be rushed into existence by decree, branding, or institutional design alone. It is slow, collective work. It is learned through games that reward mutual success, debates that dignify disagreement, technologies that connect rather than manipulate, and leaders who make credibility visible through example. There are no shortcuts worth taking.

Explore the full mini-series here.

Farrukh Irnazarov is an international development expert with over 15 years of experience in economic policy, investment strategies, labour migration, trade, and agribusiness. He is the Co-Founder and Country Director for Uzbekistan at the Central Asian Development Institute (CADI) and Co-Founder of the RANSIF Group, a policy and research platform promoting responsible and transparent investment in Central Asia. Farrukh’s focus is on fostering constructive capital, designing investment screening mechanisms, and advancing private sector development across the region.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the individual author and do not reflect the views of The Foreign Policy Centre.

Topics

Civil Society

Democracy and Elections

Good Governance and Institutional Reform

Regions

Central Asia

Gen Z, Agency and Engagement: From Tokenism to Meaningful Collaboration

Article by Aaron Campbell and Gulshat Ayydova

July 16, 2026

Gen Z, Agency and Engagement: From Tokenism to Meaningful Collaboration

Young people are often described as the ‘future’, yet they are already shaping political life in the present. We are two young leaders from very different contexts: the UK and Turkmenistan. Even though our countries are culturally, socially and politically quite different, we found through indepth discussion in both – and we suspect across the globe – Gen Z are navigating complex barriers to formal participation while simultaneously creating new, constructive forms of civic engagement. If our leaders are serious about building resilient and peaceful societies, we have to transform our engagement with young people from tokenistic consultation to meaningful collaboration.

Young people’s agency is expressed not only through formal institutions such as voting or parliamentary participation, but also through civic activism, digital mobilisation, community leadership, and social entrepreneurship. However, our systems frequently fail to recognise this reality. Young people are invited into conversations symbolically rather than substantively, consulted without influence, and expected to participate in systems that were not designed with them in mind.

Through our work we hear from young people that they see themselves mentioned in speeches and strategies, but do not participate in decision-making spaces where power actually sits. Youth councils, consultations, and forums often exist without real influence over policy outcomes, reinforcing frustration and deepening distrust in institutions.

There are both formal and informal barriers for young people to engage with governance structures. These include limited access to policymakers, hierarchical political cultures, and a perception that the youth lack the experience or authority to contribute meaningfully. In formal settings, even practical factors such as language confidence, professional etiquette, and expectations around dress and behaviour can become invisible barriers that exclude young people from participation.

In the UK, organisations like My Life My Say and Flipgenn are actively breaking down these barriers – and it is working. In the lead-up to the most recent local elections, 444,874 young people registered to vote in April 2026 alone, and the Electoral Commission found that 81% of young people see living in a democracy as important.^[1] Yet such organisations remain the exception rather than the rule, and the lack of meaningful institutional pathways for engagement remains one of the greatest barriers young people face.

When those pathways are absent, the consequences are significant. In the UK, polling shows that 63% of 18–24-year-olds doubt any major political party could improve their lives, and 73% feel politicians do not care about people like them.^[2] In Turkmenistan, young people similarly describe a sense of distance from formal decision-making – feeling that their voices sometimes carry weight in community spaces but rarely reach the institutions where policy is shaped. In both contexts, the risk is the same: when young people feel that the system is not working for them, disengagement follows.

One example from Turkmenistan shows what becomes possible when this changes. Through the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) seminars on Climate Negotiations, Model OSCE, and Inclusive Climate Governance, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) supported Youth Climate Summer School, and the annual Local Conference of Youth (LCOY) endorsed by YOUNGO, young people from across Turkmenistan have come together to learn, exchange ideas, and contribute to addressing environmental challenges.^[3] These initiatives have been made possible thanks to the support of national institutions, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education, as well as international partners such as UNICEF, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the OSCE, and diplomatic missions including the UK Embassy. Working together, these partners have created spaces where young people can develop their skills, collaborate with experts, and transform their ideas into practical initiatives that benefit their communities.

What has been most inspiring is seeing how young people respond when they are trusted and encouraged to contribute. Many participants have gone on to organise awareness campaigns, volunteer activities, and peer-learning initiatives, sharing their knowledge with others and inspiring more young people to get involved. They often speak about the pride and satisfaction they feel from being able to contribute to issues that matter to them and to their communities.^[4] These experiences show that when young people are given opportunities to learn, collaborate, and take responsibility, they develop into confident and active citizens. Society, in turn, benefits from their creativity, enthusiasm, and commitment to building a more sustainable future.

Representation matters. When people see someone like themselves making a difference, they feel empowered to believe they can do the same – and their sense of belonging to their country is strengthened when they can see themselves working within its structures and contributing to its future. But representation must not mean simply inviting young people to the table: it must mean giving them the authority, trust, and resources to shape outcomes. Youth engagement should also extend beyond parliaments and ministries. Community centres, universities, coworking spaces, and local initiatives often provide more accessible and psychologically safe environments for young people to engage in public life.

Leaders and policy-makers concerned about social cohesion among the next generation should understand that empowering young people to be active members of their society – in the spaces where they live, study and work – is precisely how trust and social capital are built. If we are serious about building resilient and inclusive societies, youth engagement must move beyond tokenism and toward genuine representation, civic education, and structural support. It requires real investment and commitment, but the evidence from both our countries is clear: when young people are given the opportunity to contribute, they do – and society as a whole is stronger for it.

Explore the full mini-series here.

Aaron Campbell is located at the intersection of Mental Health, EDI & Liberation, Advocacy for Young People, Higher Education and Politics/Policy, with a passion, drive, and focus on making long lasting and meaningful change within society, particularly for those who are marginalised. They graduated from the University of East Anglia with a degree in Computing and Graphic Design and since have worked with many organisations across multiple sectors including government, mental health, legal and grassroots organisations.

Gulshat Ayydova is a climate and youth advocate from Turkmenistan. She founded the Youth Climate Action Network Turkmenistan and leads a range of initiatives to engage young people in climate action. Her work includes organising eco camps, eco festivals, climate hackathons, and national youth conferences on climate change, as well as co-developing policy recommendations for the government. She currently serves as a member of the EU Youth Sounding Board for Central Asia. Gulshat is committed to advancing inclusive and sustainable climate policies in Turkmenistan.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the individual authors and do not reflect the views of The Foreign Policy Centre.

^[1] The Electoral Commission, Young people’s views on politics and voting 2026, March 2026, https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/research-reports-and-data/young-peoples-views-politics-and-voting-2026

^[2] From a survey conducted by Opinium, https://www.opinium.com/insight/ and commissioned by My Life My Say, https://www.mylifemysay.org.uk/

^[3] UNICEF, UNICEF Launches Youth Climate Summer School 2025, June 2025, https://www.unicef.org/turkmenistan/press-releases/unicef-launches-youth-climate-summer-school-2025; UN Turkmenistan, Raising a Generation of Climate Leaders: Gulshat and Selbi Empower Youth for Climate Action in Turkmenistan, November 2025, https://turkmenistan.un.org/en/305747-raising-generation-climate-leaders-gulshat-and-selbi-empower-youth-climate-action; OSCE, OSCE promotes youth engagement in climate change issues in Turkmenistan, July 2025, https://ashgabat.osce.org/centre-in-ashgabat/595459; OSCE, Model OSCE promotes youth leadership and climate diplomacy in Turkmenistan, April 2026, https://ashgabat.osce.org/news/centre-ashgabat/663259

^[4] Statement based on participant feedback collected during workshops and informal discussions rather than a formal evaluation.

Topics

Civil Society

Human Rights

Regions

Turkmenistan

United Kingdom

Op-ed | The UK’S Long and Winding Road Back to Brussels

Join our mailing list

Op-ed | Conflict Prevention Has Never Been More Important

Join our mailing list

Long Read | The State of the UN

A System Designed for Another World

The UN as a Venue, Not an Actor

What Does this Mean for the UK?

Join our mailing list

Long Read | Immigration Policy: The Backdoor to Transnational Repression

The Complaint

Political Responses to Transnational Repression

Restrictive Immigration Policies and Transnational Repression

The Cases of Germany and the United Kingdom

Fighting Transnational Repression Through a Whole-of-Government Approach

Join our mailing list

Op-ed | A Camel Called the Investor Visa

Join our mailing list

Beyond the Ballot Box: Democracy Is What Happens Between Elections

Accountability when It matters most

What democracy requires

Join our mailing list

Resistance Is Not Enough: Rethinking the Belarusian Democratic Movement

Join our mailing list

Civil Society Organisations Are Losing the Narrative War – How Can Trust Be Rebuilt?

Propaganda, legal threats, and institutional failings are making civil society more vulnerable

So how should civil society respond?

What leaders need in this moment

Join our mailing list

No Shortcuts to Trust: Education, Civic Habits, and Social Resilience in Central Asia

Education as democratic infrastructure

Technology, trust and democratic resilience

Join our mailing list

Gen Z, Agency and Engagement: From Tokenism to Meaningful Collaboration

Join our mailing list

Join our mailing list