Recommendation 52

To enable the Strategic Partnership to deliver to its full potential, Ministers will need to produce a clearer and more coherent vision about the EU relationship for the next phase of negotiations. The UK and EU both face far- reaching national and economic security challenges from an increasingly multipolar global order and a more transactional ally in the US. While the Government has told us that it has undertaken a “realistic, hard-headed assessment of international politics and our national interest”, we do not believe this extremely unstable geopolitical context is adequately reflected in the outcome of the Lancaster House summit. (Conclusion, Paragraph 148)