British Journal of Politics & International Relations
Global models and post-Brexit discourses: ‘Singapore on Thames’ or ‘Nordic Scotland’?
2025-12-29
We analyse the rise of ‘Singapore on Thames’ and ‘Nordic Scotland’ discourses in post-Brexit UK as reflective of invented national models constructed with global policy scripts and rankings. The UK’s withdrawal from the European Union led the country to search for its new global identity and place in the global economy. Addressing the uncertain future, political actors referred to Singapore as a potential model for post-Brexit UK, idealising the Southeast Asian City State’s competitive institutional arrangements. Brexit also gave momentum for aspirations of Scottish independence with Nordic countries and welfare state acting as a starkly contrasting model for independent Scotland. Our article critically analyses the cognitive and normative aspects of the Singapore on Thames and Nordic Scotland discourses. We identify two modalities for referencing numerically constructed policy models, as means of anticipation or politicisation, blurring the communicative and coordinative variants of the analysed policy discourses and contributing to their failure.