Has Britain become more globally connected — or more inward-looking?

MATCH OF THE DAY: SOCIAL GLOBALISATION — Britain 1, EU 0

Referee: ETH Zurich’s KOF Globalisation Index

Brexit was sold as the route to a “truly Global Britain”, with Theresa May promising a country “more outward-looking than ever before” in her Lancaster House speech.

Ten years on, the KOF Globalisation Index, whose social globalisation measure tracks personal contacts, information flows and cultural openness rather than diplomatic muscle, shows everyone in this match lost ground, but the UK started from top spot and stayed ahead even while declining itself. Britain is on a lower score than before Brexit by stripping friction-free routes out of exactly the people, student, travel and cultural channels that KOF uses to judge openness.

WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

This is a downward trend disguised by a flattering result. The UK’s social globalisation score falls from 89.98 in 2012 to 84.38 in 2023, while still staying ahead of Germany on 80.53, France on 78.55, the EU line on 79.61 and Italy on 76.05. But the wider table is less comforting: the UK is only 11th in the world on 84.38, behind Luxembourg, Hong Kong, Monaco, Andorra and Singapore in the latest ranking page. Britain still wins this local derby. It is just winning it on fewer points.

Why?

1) PLAN — gone glocal

The Brexit promise was clear enough: Britain would leave the EU and become more global, not less, in the May speech and the Johnson “Global Britain” speech. The problem is that this was a slogan, not a funded mechanism for the KOF chosen goals — students, travel, visa openness, airports, information flows and cultural exchange. The UK won the five-team table because it started from a very high base. Brexit still failed its own promise because it never built a mechanism to make that base stronger. 

Plan route-map score: UK 6/10, EU system 5/10 — Britain kept the shirt; Europe kept going.

2) POLICY — the whole top five fell, but Britain added its own friction

France, Germany and Italy matter here because they show this was not a UK-only slump. KOF said social globalisation remained below 2019 levels because international mobility was damaged by the pandemic, even as recovery began through tourism and cultural exchange in the 2024 KOF release, and KOF had already said interpersonal globalisation had declined in the 2021 KOF release. So Germany, France and Italy were all dragged down by the same broader shock. But Britain then layered Brexit friction on top. Incoming EU students fell from almost 153,000 in 2020/21 to 120,140 in 2021/22 after post-Brexit fee and visa changes in the UK in a Changing Europe analysis, while the UK left Erasmus for the non-reciprocal Turing Scheme. 

Policy route score: UK 5/10, EU system 7/10 — everyone lost altitude, but Britain chose extra headwind.

3) PERFORMANCE — demand stayed strong, but the model got weaker

Britain is still an attractive place. The ONS says study-related immigration rose from 126,000 in YE June 2020 to 417,000 in YE June 2023, and its travel trends release says overseas residents made 42.6 million visits to the UK in 2024. That explains why the UK beats Germany, France and Italy locally even while falling itself. Britain did not become closed. It became less outward-looking than promised. So this is a story of Britain failing to institutionalise openness as well as the better European performers do. In the 2023 table, Luxembourg is first, Switzerland eighth and Norway tenth, while the UK sits eleventh. Britain still has pull. It no longer has the same ease. 

Performance route score: UK 6/10, EU system 6/10 — still top of this division, no longer climbing the table.

FINAL WHISTLE — what this score really means

Britain isn't North Korea with a Pret. Brexit did, however, make the country more inward-looking than promised by weakening the low-friction mechanisms that convert a globally curious society into a highly social globalised state.

Britain’s problem on social globalisation is a lack of mechanism. The winner in this match was not some mystical continental spirit. It was the side that kept more of the machinery of reciprocal openness running, from student exchange to lower-friction mobility to the wider institutional ecology.

If nothing changes, Britain can keep topping this five-team mini-table while sliding further down the real one. And that is where the bigger season starts.

SEE WHERE BRITAIN REALLY STANDS