Ripples of Peace

Webinar: UK Defense Policy Under Labour and its Impact on the Devolved Contexts with Academi Heddwch

Join the Scottish Peace Platform and Academi Heddwch Cymru (the Welsh Peace Institute) for a webinar on ‘UK Defense Policy Under Labour and its Impact on the Devolved Nations’. Registration via the link below! Dr. Bethan Sian Jones, Project Development Manager at Academi Heddwch, will introduce and provide background about the institute’s work. Professor Colin McInness, Research Lead at Academi Heddwch and an Emeritus Professor of International Politics at Aberystwyth University, will present the institute’s research on UK defence policy and its interplay with the Welsh devolved context. 

The Scottish Peace Platform, through its partnership on this webinar with Academi Heddwch, aims to platform insights from another UK devolved context and a well-established peace centre, with the goal of sharing and exchanging learning for the Scottish peacebuilding context. 

Background on the topic

Since being elected in 2024, the Labour Government in Westminster has made a series of major announcements concerning defence policy, while the Prime Minister has referred to improving defence as a ‘generational challenge’ and that ‘[t]he fundamental truth is clear: a step-change in the threats we face demands a step-change in British defence to meet them.’ Although defence remains a reserved power many of these announcements have implications for devolved governments, including potentially infringing on devolved powers. Further, the underpinning basis of these changes – of responding to a perceived threat with a military build-up, and of increasing nuclear reliance – are problematic from the perspective of building a peaceful world. This presentation draws on research conducted for Wales but which has wider relevance to other devolved governments and for the peace movement more broadly.