Adapting to survive: Brexit, war in Ukraine and Gaza, and Euro-British intelligence sharing

Several recent crises have put the European Union’s (EU) framework for external intelligence to the test, impacting its structures and dynamics: from Brexit, which deprived the EU of a key player and left the United Kingdom (UK) with no seat at key decisional tables; to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, to more recent conflict in the Middle East. These shocks compelled the UK and EU to rethink their intelligence relationship to cooperate on issues of regional and global security. This article investigates the adaptation of the Anglo-European relationship to recent changes from a network analysis perspective, addressing two questions: how has the UK’s position in the EU’s intelligence framework changed in response to such events? And how has the network’s functioning adjusted in return? By framing the UK as a node in the European intelligence network, I conduct a longitudinal study in four times: before Brexit (spring 2020), immediately after Brexit (spring 2021), after the Russian invasion of Ukraine (Spring 2022) and after the intensification of tensions in the Gaza Strip (Spring 2024). Through semi-structured elite interviews with British and European intelligence professionals, I explore the UK’s shifting network power and centrality, and what this means for the EU’s intelligence framework, both in terms of strategic intelligence circulation and for the broader socialization of EU security. This study’s theoretical and empirical contributions extend beyond EU frameworks. Theoretically, this novel application of network analysis provides explanatory power and methodological rigour to investigate relational dynamics in intelligence sharing frameworks, especially in times of change. Empirically, findings on network resilience and on the merits (and limits) of informality in response to shocks have useful policy implications globally, for both established and emerging intelligence alliances.