Moderated by:
Professor Anand Menon – Professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at Kings College London. He also directs the UK in a Changing Europe project (www.ukandeu.ac.uk). His areas of research interest include the policies and institutions of the European Union, European security, and British politics. He contributes regularly to both print and broadcast media. He is co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of the European Union (OUP, 2012), and co-author of Brexit and British Politics (Polity 2018). He is a trustee of Full Fact a member of the Strategic Council of the European Policy Centre, a Council member of the European Council on Foreign Relations and an associate fellow of Chatham House. @anandmenon1
On the panel:
Sophia Gaston – Director of the British Foreign Policy Group (BFPG). Sophia Gaston is the Director of the British Foreign Policy Group (BFPG), and a social and political researcher specialising in public opinion. Through the BFPG, Sophia works to highlight the intersections between domestic governance and international policy-making, ensuring the UK’s foreign policy stands on a solid foundation of public consent. Her broader research explores threats to governance in advanced liberal democracies, including populism, nationalism, cultural insecurity, nostalgia and the rise of anti-establishment movements. Sophia is a Research Fellow in the Institute for Global Affairs at theLondon School of Economics and Political Science, and an Academic Fellow at theEuropean Policy Centre in Brussels.
Alyn Smith MP – SNP Foreign Affairs Spokesperson. A lawyer to trade, Alyn Smith is the Member of Parliament for Stirling, first elected in the 2019 General Election, having previously spent 15 years representing Scotland in the European Parliament as an MEP. He is the SNP’s Foreign Affairs Spokesperson and is the Vice Chair of the All Party Group on Universities at Westminster.
Tom Tugendhat MP – Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Tom left the British Army in July 2013 after a career in which he served on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and, most recently, as the military assistant to the Chief of the Defence Staff. He has served as MP for Tonbridge and Malling since 2015, and as Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee since 2017.
Ambassador João Vale de Almeida – Ambassador of the European Union to the United Kingdom. Prior to his current role, Ambassador Vale de Almeida served as EU Ambassador to the United Nations (from 2015 to 2019). In New York, he coordinated the EU’s presence in all UN bodies, working closely with the Permanent Representatives of the EU Member States. Ambassador Vale de Almeida previously served as the first EU Ambassador to the United States of America, from 2010 to 2014.