The official vision for ‘global Britain’. Brexit as rupture and continuity between free trade, liberal internationalism and ‘values’

While at the time of writing (June 2017) the exact nature of Britain leaving the EU is still unclear, one cannot escape the fact that institutional and public discourses since the referendum result have primarily boiled down to a debate over the UK’s future organisation of its economic activities. Striking the best possible free trade agreements with the EU and the rest of the world has become common currency in Brexit parlance. Likewise, imagined new ‘global’economic and political roles for Britain–which were among the key drivers of the Leave campaign (Zappettini, forthcoming)–have escalated into institutional discourses legitimising Brexit as ‘a new era for Britain’and its place in the world. As Prime Minister Theresa May put it in a key talk given just before triggering Article 50:(1) A little over 6 months ago, the British people voted [...] to leave the European Union and embrace the world [...] June the 23rd was not the moment Britain chose to step back from the world. It was the moment we chose to build a truly global Britain (May, 2017).