Proponents of the Anglosphere concept typically come from the
political right (such as
Andrew Roberts of the
UK Conservative Party), and critics from the
centre-left (for example
Michael Ignatieff of the
Liberal Party of Canada).
Proponents As early as 1897,
Albert Venn Dicey proposed an Anglo-Saxon "intercitizenship" during an address to the Fellows of
All Souls at Oxford. The American businessman
James C. Bennett, a proponent of the idea that there is something special about the cultural and legal (
common law) traditions of English-speaking nations, writes in his 2004 book
The Anglosphere Challenge: Bennett argues that there are two challenges confronting his concept of the Anglosphere. The first is finding ways to cope with rapid technological advancement and the second is the geopolitical challenges created by what he assumes will be an increasing gap between anglophone prosperity and economic struggles elsewhere. British historian
Andrew Roberts claims that the Anglosphere has been central in the
First World War,
Second World War and
Cold War. He goes on to contend that anglophone unity is necessary for the defeat of
Islamism. According to a 2003 profile in
The Guardian, historian
Robert Conquest favoured a
British withdrawal from the
European Union in favour of creating "a much looser association of English-speaking nations, known as the 'Anglosphere.
CANZUK Favourability ratings tend to be overwhelmingly positive between countries within a subset of the core Anglosphere known as
CANZUK (consisting of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom), whose members form part of the
Commonwealth of Nations and retain Charles III as head of state. In the wake of the
United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union (Brexit) as a result of a
referendum held in 2016, some politicians and organisations have expressed support for a loose free travel and common market area to be formed among the CANZUK countries.
Criticisms In 2000,
Michael Ignatieff wrote in an exchange with
Robert Conquest, published by the
New York Review of Books, that the term neglects the evolution of fundamental legal and cultural differences between the US and the UK, and the ways in which UK and European norms drew closer together during Britain's membership in the EU through
regulatory harmonisation. Of Conquest's view of the Anglosphere, Ignatieff writes: "He seems to believe that Britain should either
withdraw from Europe or refuse all further measures of cooperation, which would jeopardize Europe's real achievements. He wants Britain to throw in its lot with a union of English-speaking peoples, and I believe this to be a romantic illusion". In 2016,
Nick Cohen wrote in an article titled "It's a Eurosceptic fantasy that the 'Anglosphere' wants Brexit" for
The Spectator's Coffee House blog: Anglosphere' is just the right's
PC replacement for what we used to call in blunter times 'the
white Commonwealth'." He repeated this criticism in another article for
The Guardian in 2018. Similar criticism was presented by other critics such as Canadian academic Srđan Vučetić. In 2018, amidst the aftermath of the
Brexit referendum, two British professors of public policy
Michael Kenny and Nick Pearce published a critical scholarly monograph titled
Shadows of Empire: The Anglosphere in British Politics (). In one of a series of accompanying opinion pieces, they questioned: They stated in another article: ==See also==