Is The UK An Arctic Nation?
While Britain is not usually considered an Arctic nation, geography still gives it a place in this region. Its northernmost point, on the Shetland Islands, is located almost at the same latitude of Anchorage, Alaska; Dunnet Head, the northernmost point on the mainland, is located north of Churchill, a Canadian port on the Hudson Bay known as “the Polar Bear Capital of the World”; and many parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland face the Arctic directly, without any land in between. Moreover, Britain is a sea power, and the Age of Discoveries turned what used to be a peripherical nation on the edge of Europe into a sort of pirate ship which conquered strongholds around the globe and which eventually turned out to “rule the waves”, as put by one of the most famous British patriotic songs. Still, in spite of the premises, its political influence in the Arctic region has often been limited, with the Canadian Arctic being the main exception (Canada, as known, has long been British).
The main focuses of Britain’s maritime expansion, after all, have been first the Atlantic Ocean and then India, Africa, Oceania and some choke points and strategically-located islands which allowed them to control the main maritime routes (Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Suez…). True, England was the first country to look for the Northeast Passage, and to achieve this aim this scope it founded the Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands (later rebranded as Muscovy Company), the first of those chartered companies which led the first stage of British colonialism. In the early 17th Century, Britain also laid a claim on the Svalbard Islands on the notion—later proved false—that they were discovered by Sir Hugh Willoughby on his voyage towards the Northeast Passage. The Muscovy Company would then manage the Svalbard Islands on a condominium with the Netherlands for around 50 years, which it subsequently left due to financial difficulties. That claim remains the only one the British ever raised on the European Arctic so far, and its historic importance is not even barely comparable to the foundation of Jamestown, the first English colony on American soil, which was built pretty much in those years.
We should cross the Atlantic Ocean to find a more long-lasting British presence on the Arctic. During the 17th Century, Henry Hudson explored the bay which now bears its name, and the region around it would have later become ownership of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), which it held until 1870. After Britain conquered then-French Canada in 1763, London started to explore the Pacific Northwest, bought the land held by the HBC and ultimately discovered the Northwest Passage, which nonetheless it never managed to sail (the first complete voyage on the Passage was made in 1903 by Roald Amundsen). As we mentioned in a previous article, Canada owes its enormous territory—including its Arctic provinces—to British expansionism; but it didn’t take long before the control on the Canadian Arctic became a Canadian affair. In 1931, under the Statute of Westminster, Canada was de facto recognised as an independent state, and the only subsequent instance of Arctic policy was the occupation of the Faroe Islands between 1940 and 1944, in order to prevent them to fall under Nazi Germany or some local collaborationists.
So, if we exclude the exploration and the conquest of what would have become the Canadian Arctic, Britain’s role in the region has been limited and not comparable to the one in the more distant Antarctic region, where it own some of its remaining colonies, got its latest single-handed war victory (in the Falkland War) and claims a large slice of the Sixth Continent. The “Cod Wars” between Great Britain and Iceland between the 50’s and the 70’s proved Britain’s weakness in the region; and, while Iceland’s overall victory in all of them can be mostly attributed to Cold War-related geopolitical concerns (Iceland even threatened to quit NATO in case its interests weren’t taken into consideration), the impact on Britain’s fisheries was still too great to be simply overlooked. The Cold War, nevertheless, proved also the strategic importance of the Greenland—Iceland—UK (GIUK) Gap, which could be used to control Soviet ships and even submarines attempting to cross into the Atlantic.
At the same time, with the end of the British Empire and the beginning of the European integration, the UK has tried to set up a sort of alternative European Union which, while promoting free trade, did not aim to create some kind of European federation. Born in 1960, the EFTA (European Free Trade Association) included not only Ireland, Portugal and the Alpine countries, but all of Northern Europe. This attempt didn’t prove to be very successful: countries like Sweden and Norway couldn’t make up for the loss of the Empire, nor were their markets as interesting as those of countries like Germany and Italy. Therefore, in 1973, the UK abandoned the EFTA and joined the EU. The EFTA, nevertheless, had the long-term effect to strengthen the relations between the UK and the Nordic countries.
In the last few years, the Arctic came back to the forefront for several reasons. The most significant one is climate change, with all the well-known global warming-related risks but also the prospective for new communication routes. Another reason is the increase of international tensions, with the “New Cold War” and the ongoing transition from American unipolarism to a multipolar world. This led to a rediscovery of the aforementioned GIUK Gap. The last one is Brexit, which had a two-fold consequence: a reboot of Britain’s relations with the Commonwealth countries—including the Arctic country of Canada—and the attempt to create a sphere of influence in Northern Europe and the Intermarium belt between Germany and Russia, with the potential to create a Greater Intermarium from the Arctic Ocean to the Atriatic and the Black Sea and from the Oder to the Dnieper rivers.
The UK’s 2023 Arctic Strategy
Britain’s last Arctic Strategy report, named Looking North: The UK and the Arctic, was published in February 2023 under the then-Minister of State responsible for the Polar Regions Lord Goldsmith. It is the third Arctic strategy set up by the UK, after Adapting to Change (2013) and Beyond the Ice (2018). Each couple of adjacent strategies has always been marked up by a pivotal moment between them: Beyond the Ice followed both the beginning of the Ukrainian Crisis (on which the UK has been playing a main role) and—most of all—Britain’s withdrawal from the EU, while Looking North followed the “upgrade” of the Ukrainian crisis into a full-fledged international conflict and, de facto, a proxy war between Russia and the Collective West.
Among the Arctic countries, Canada is mentioned first in the white paper. This is hardly surprising: as a former settlement colony and a Commonwealth realm, the ties Ottawa enjoys with Britain are unmatched by any other Arctic nation, including the States. Canada, in this contest, is both a defense and a scientific partner: since 2017, for instance, the two countries have implemented a scheme allowing British researchers to join Canadian-led Arctic research projects and using Canadian infrastructure. The two countries also have a strong defense cooperation and hold several projects about Arctic indigenous peoples. Following Brexit, there has been a reboot of the economic and commercial relations with Canada, which lost its preferential access to the British and Commonwealth markets through the Imperial Preferences after Britain joined the EU, but which is now gradually rebuilding its traditional trade ties with the former metropolitan. Not less important are the relations with the United States, as shown by their common participation in the High North military training since 2020 and in the Norway-led Cold Response one in 2022.
Nordic countries are also mentioned as key strategic partners. This reflects both the growing importance of the Arctic region and the post-Brexit strategy to carve out a sphere of influence in the Intermarium region, which could be eventually turned into a “Greater Intermarium” including Nordic countries and the Central and Eastern European countries located between Germany and Russia, many of which, after all, share two key characteristics with the UK: Euroscepticism (apart from Finland, for instance, no Nordic country has joined the Eurozone) and Russophobia. This cooperation actually started before Brexit: the Joint Expeditionary Forces, a UK-led military partnership including all Nordic countries, the Baltic States and the Netherlands, are active since 2014. Britain has also sponsored Sweden and Finland’s adhesion to NATO, increasing the number of like-minded partners within the Alliance. It is important to underline that, in spite of Brexit, Britain does not officially support similar moves by countries like Sweden or Finland: they are in fact way more useful inside the EU then outside.
Russia, on the other hand, was singled out as a threat. Russia and Britain, to be fair, have rarely been friends; and, while they have been allied in both World Wars, their relations during the last 200 years swung from suspicious to tense to openly hostile. While the tensions between Russia and Britain have gradually increased after the mid-2000’s, with a dramatic worsening after the beginning of the Ukrainian Crisis, after the 2016 Brexit referendum some observers expected that the increased tensions with Brussels and, as a consequence, with the two most important EU members, would have been matched by warmer relations with Russia, as it happened during the World Wars. Not only this didn’t happen, but Brexit actually worsened Russian-British relations, and the choice to reach out the “New Europe” and the Northern European countries didn’t help (see above). We should underline that, at the end of the day, Britain’s main concern has always been preventing the formation of a strong power on the Continent with the potential to overtake it, and this subsequently turned into an opposition to a potential axis between Germany and Russia which, paraphrasing Lord Ismay, would have kept “the Anglo-Saxons out, the Russians in and the Poles down”.
The 2018 white paper still reflected some sort of Arctic exceptionalism. Geopolitical tensions related to Ukraine and other issues with both Russia and China were not mentioned: China is mentioned just in relation to the development of new sea routes across the Arctic, while Russia is referred as a partner in scientific research. The white paper, in particular, stated that in 2017-18 the number of joint Arctic projects carried out by Russian and British institutions has been scaled up from one to five, as well as Britain’s participation in the upcoming MOSAiC Expedition around the North Pole, which would have been led by Germany, the United States… and Russia. All this is lacking in the latest white paper, which mentions the launch of the Special Military Operation as something which “has fundamentally undermined the peaceful cooperation that had characterised the Arctic Council since its inception in 1996”. Scientific cooperation has been practically stopped, as well as relations between Russian and British academic institutions, and the stop of the import of Russian oil and gas has been set as a target. It should be remarked that, before the 24th February, Britain imported (also) Russian gas through the BBL Pipeline and BP was one of Rosneft’s main shareholders due to a previous partnership with the Russian oil company TNK, making it a partner on the extraction of Russian Arctic oil and gas.
The white paper still pays close attention to the scientific research in the area, for example by mentioning the new research icebreaker Sir David Attenborough (which became operational in 2020), as well as issues such as climate change and indigenous populations; but, as we saw for Germany and Canada, what used to be the main focuses of many countries’ Arctic strategies are now taking a backseat. The Arctic used to be one of the two main areas where countries cooperated regardless of geopolitical tensions elsewhere (the other one is the outer space), but Arctic exceptionalism is now over, “killed” by the ongoing transition towards a multipolar world and the climate change, which is opening up an area which used to be one of the last frontiers until a few years ago.
Will The UK Become An Arctic Power?
The current White Paper was issued by a Conservative government, but most of its main tenets are still applicable under the current Labour one. The establishments of the two main parties, for instance, have similar stances on climate change, and unlike in the U.S. climate change sceptics are mostly in the fringes. Likewise, while Brexit has both played a key role in shaping Britain’s current foreign policy (and, as a consequence, its Arctic policy), and the current Prime Minister has been a staunch remainer who even supported the idea of a “people’s vote” on the final Brexit deal, clearly aimed at stopping Brexit altogether, the vectors of Britain’s Arctic policy have remained pretty much the same, perhaps with a slight reorientation towards the European Union which nevertheless is unlikely to lead to a rejoin.
Nor has the anti-Russian stance of Britain’s Arctic policy changed after the 2024 election: with very few exceptions such as the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn—who recently left the party, the establishment of both major parties are pretty univocal in considering Russia as a threat, and Starmer is as Russophobe as his Conservative, pro-Brexit predecessors, as shown by his role in forming the “Coalition of the Willing” opposing the Trump-led attempted peace process in Ukraine. Left-wing (Corbyn, Galloway) and right-wing (Farage) populists are less Russophobe than mainstream politicians, if not openly Russophile, and a Farage government after the 2029 elections is not unlikely, at least if the current trends on the polls are confirmed; but, until then, Britain’s foreign policy will remain vehemently anti-Russian. And this, needless to say, will also imply an anti-Russian Arctic policy.
At the same time, nevertheless, quitting Russian oil and gas is easier in theory than in practice. While the role of Russian gas in Britain’s gas consumption has always been limited, both for geographical reasons and for the availability of locally-produced natural gas (Britain was a net exporter of natural gas until very recently), Russian oil—whose import is officially banned in the UK—actually continues to flow into the country through loopholes, such as re-exports through countries which don’t apply anti-Russian sanctions. What we can expect, nevertheless, is that Britain will be absent from the extraction of the Russian Arctic oil and gas, and that the previous partnerships between Russian and British companies will not be reinstated anytime soon.
On the other hand, the most similar Arctic country to Britain is Canada. The two countries are like-minded not only culturally, but also in terms of geopolitical outlook (see Ukraine), and their strategic interests somehow converge: neither Britain nor Canada, for instance, have the interest in Washington taking Greenland. There is little doubt that the post-Brexit reboot of the British-Canadian relations has been successful, as shown by the former joining the CPTPP trade partnership of which Canada is a member and which includes a number of countries in the Pacific Rim. Moreover, in March 2025, the former Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney became Canada’s Prime Minister: a clear sign that, although Britain is no longer Canada’s main trade partner, its influence on Canadian affairs is still great (and Canadians, on the other hand, can still achieve institutional roles in Britain). Especially after Trump’s victory and the upcoming “nationalisation” of America’s foreign policy, there has also been an increased interest in CANZUK, a proposed supranational organisation among the Commonwealth realms implying a common market, simplified naturalisation procedures and a strong defense cooperation.
First envisioned by “some people who talk in lost accents in eccentric London circles”, CANZUK has recently been embraced by the Canadian Liberal Party, and is seemingly gaining popularity also among its British counterparts—including de facto the Labour Party. This liberal embrace of CANZUK should not be underestimated: while it may sound as reboot of the old British Empire, we should not forget that even the latter’s ideological foundations were liberal, rather than conservative or nationalist, and a liberal-supported CANZUK is way more likely to be realised. This would have also great consequences on the Arctic region: while it would not be able to challenge Russian primate in the region for the time being, CANZUK would still become a main Arctic power, since it would control most of the Northwest Passage, the southern end of the GIUK Gap and have the second largest surface fleet in the world after the United States. What makes CANZUK still unlikely in the short and medium term is not internal opposition, but the lack of a strong political will in this sense: most liberals on both sides of the Atlantic are still loyal to the “Collective West”, and even for the current British government the priority is “keeping Americans in”, also in the Arctic.
While the realisation of CANZUK would strengthen Britain’s role in the Arctic, keeping its national unity is the sine qua non condition for Britain to be an Arctic power. Scotland, in particular, is what allows London to project power onto the Arctic: it controls Great Britain’s northern coast, as well as the Orkney and the Shetland Islands, it hosts some of the most important British military bases, including the one hosting nuclear submarines, and others can be reactivated if needed, first of all Scapa Flow on the Orkney Islands, which used to be the most important British naval base during both World Wars. At the same time, a Britain without Scotland would find itself vulnerable on its northern flank, since an independent Scotland would somehow revive the Auld Alliance [ed. the medieval Scottish-French alliance against England] by strengthening its ties with the European Union to counterbalance London.
While officially giving Scotland an independence referendum, London made it best to make it fail, for instance by precluding Edinburgh the possibility to use the pound in case of a “Yes” victory and reminding the Scots that the 2014 referendum was a “once in a generation” event after the pro-independence factions asked for a second one after Brexit. Still, at the moment, the possibility of Scotland becoming independent is higher than the one of CANZUK being created. If two of the main tenets of British identity are Protestantism and the Empire, the decay of both have inevitably harmed Scottish unionism, and it’s no surprise if the Scottish National Party became a meaningful political force in the early 1970’s, with the start of the final secularisation process and after the Suez Crisis caused de facto the end of the British Empire. The latest polls show a close race between independentists and unionists; and, while there are still a number of non-material factors keeping Britain together, we can claim that the one between Scotland and England is now mostly a marriage of convenience, with all the foreseeable consequences.
At the moment, it’s reasonable to say that the best-case scenario for Britain is that that CANZUK is realised, Britain remains united and the United States do not take Greenland. CANZUK and British unity are somehow correlated: if CANZUK ultimately becomes a geopolitical reality, it would also marginalise Scottish independentism and give a new sense to the British identity; at the same time, if there will be no CANZUK, the likelihood of Scottish independence (and Irish unity) would become much greater. At the same time, if Washington ends up ruling Greenland either de jure or—more likely—de facto, Canada would find itself surrounded by the States on three sides, and American influence would continue to erode the British one in the country. Of course, there are many factors which will ultimately influence Scotland’s institutional future, Washington’s possible annexation of Greenland and the possible birth of CANZUK; but it’s still reasonable to claim that these are the main factors influencing Britain’s Arctic future.
AUTHORGiuseppe Cappelluti
Independent Expert