United Kingdom foreign policy: Restructuring post-Brexit

The United Kingdom's view of European integration and its relationship with the EU developed differently from the relations between the Continental European countries and the EU, and the United Kingdom had a different nature with the EU. While the United Kingdom supported the search for concrete cooperation for European integration, it did not want to become a member of the EU at first, referring to its different and noble character from the Continental European states. With the changing conditions, although it later became a member state of the EU, the United Kingdom remained outside most of the common policies of the Union. During its membership, its relations with the EU followed a distant, doubtful and bumpy course and could not fully integrate with the EU. For these reasons, the United Kingdom was in an exceptional position within the EU. Eventually, on June 23, 2016, by carrying the EU membership to a referendum, it decided to leave the EU membership, namely Brexit, with 51.9% of the votes. Following this decision, the UK and the EU started separation negotiations, and as a result of long negotiations, the UK officially left the EU in January 2020. Then, with the signing of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) in December 2020 and the end of the transition period, the UK has exactly left the EU. The position of the United Kingdom, which left the EU with Brexit, has changed in the world and the United Kingdom has tried to redefine its role in the world. In other words, the foreign policy of the United Kingdom, which left the EU with the Brexit process, has begun to reshape. In this context, the thesis aims to determine how the Brexit referendum and the UK's departure from the EU have changed the UK's position in the world, by addressing the unique structure of the UK-EU relations in the historical process. Within the scope of the thesis, the UK's relations with the EU, USA, Indo-Pacific, Russia and the Middle East were analysed and the post-Brexit UK foreign policy was revealed. In this framework, it has been concluded that there has been a change in the foreign policy of the United Kingdom with the Brexit process and in this context, the foreign policy of the United Kingdom, which acts independently and more actively, has begun to take shape. The United Kingdom, which gained the ability to create an independent foreign policy after Brexit, defined its role in the international arena as "Global Britain", pointing to a United Kingdom that acts independently and more actively in foreign policy.