The Future of Diplomacy Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs will welcome nine Senior Fellows to the Harvard Kennedy School campus between February and April 2018. All fellows will be actively engaged in Project programming, including chairing seminars with students, conducting research, and playing an active role in the intellectual life of the Harvard Kennedy School.

Faculty Director Nicholas Burns speaks with Douglas Alexander about the future of the UK just days after Prime Minister Theresa May triggered Article 50, initiating the separation between Europe and the United Kingdom Alexander previews the road ahead, identifying the underlying contradictions that that led to Brexit and how they might manifest themselves in other parts of the world.

Forty-four years after the United Kingdom entered into an often tempestuous but not always loveless union with Europe, Prime Minister Theresa May will trigger formal divorce proceedings Wednesday.

At the heart of the British position in these complex negotiations is a simple trade-off between sovereignty and prosperity.

This week, we discovered that Nicola Sturgeon’s answer to new divisions, grievances and borders is . . . more divisions, grievances and borders. Since the vote on 23 June last year, it has become fashionable for some on the “liberal left” south of the border to cope with their Brexit grief by supporting, for Scotland, more nationalism as the answer to nationalism. According to this perspective, the rise of nationalism across Europe is negative, except on this island.

The Right Honourable Douglas Alexander offered his views on European security in a discussion moderated by FDP Executive Director Cathryn Cluver.

The Belfer Center is honored to be joined this semester by four distinguished leaders—two from the United States and two from Great Britain—who bring extensive experience and valuable insights to the Belfer Center and the larger Harvard community. Andrew Weber and Kurt Campbell share their expertise in biosecurity and the Asia-Pacific, respectively, while Douglas Alexander and Peter Westmacott focus on addressing issues through diplomacy and transatlantic relations.

On June 23, the United Kingdom will decide whether it should remain part of the European Union. The early polls suggest that not only the Conservative government, but the whole country, is split. Future of Diplomacy Project senior fellow and former MP, Douglas Alexander, explains why a vote for Brexit would leave the whole European project at risk of unraveling at precisely the time new economic and security threats confront the West.

This fall, the Belfer Center welcomed a number of distinguished leaders as new senior fellows and visiting scholars. Eight new arrivals come from a range of high-profile public policy backgrounds, and each brings significant and varied expertise to Harvard Kennedy School and the Belfer Center.

Former UK Shadow Foreign Secretary and returning 2015 Fisher Family Fellow at the Future of Diplomacy Project, Douglas Alexander, assesses the likelihood of a British exit from the European Union in the upcoming referendum to be held next year. "A Brexit would lead to a loss of influence and prosperity for the UK." Writing for the Boston Globe, Mr. Alexander makes the case that the UK stands to lose more, both politically and economically, by exiting the EU than keeping its membership.