To What Extent Is the Securitisation of National Economic Security in the UK Driven by Objective Economic Vulnerabilities, Particularly Energy Security and Trade Dependency, Versus the Use of Security Framing as a Political Strategy to Advance Contested Economic Agendas While Limiting Normal Oversight and Contestation?

To What Extent Is the Securitisation of National Economic Security in the UK Driven by Objective Economic Vulnerabilities, Particularly Energy Security and Trade Dependency, Versus the Use of Security Framing as a Political Strategy to Advance Contested Economic Agendas While Limiting Normal Oversight and Contestation?

Politics and Security

26/10/2026

Chris Browring (Supervisor)

This project examines whether the securitisation of national economic security in the United Kingdom reflects objective economic vulnerabilities, particularly in energy security and trade dependency, or the use of security framing as a political strategy to advance contested economic agendas with less scrutiny. I approach the question through a policy audit. Energy security is measured using the established criteria of availability, affordability, diversity, reliability and resilience, and trade security using four properties drawn from the literature on asymmetric dependence. Six areas of energy and trade policy since 2021 are then assessed against the criteria that their own justifications invoked. Five of the six policies fail these tests and the sixth produces a mixed result. The ban on Russian energy imports ended Britain’s dependence on Russian refined oil but left untouched the exposure to international gas prices that determined British bills. Supporters and opponents of North Sea licensing both claim a security benefit, although output is sold on world markets, and in 2025 exports rose 12 per cent while production fell to its lowest level since 1973. Gas storage, which covers about 12 days of demand compared with 89 in Germany and 123 in the Netherlands, received no policy response. Leaving the European Union reduced British trade, and the Economic Prosperity Deal secured a favourable headline tariff from the United States without binding terms. Over the same period the United States came to supply 76 per cent of British liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports and to take 21.7 per cent of British exports. The policies that were adopted fit commitments made on other grounds better than the security case made for them, and the largest exposure, storage, was left alone. This suggests that security language in British economic policy has mostly been used to justify decisions after they were taken.

Politics, Political Security, Trade Security, Energy Security