SPEA Lecturer Bill Foley highlights students' experiences while studying national security in London during Brexit

Foley, William A., Jr.

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5/12/2017 Voices of Change from Great Britain – Making a Differencehttp://blogs.iu.edu/speaindy/2016/07/21/voices­of­change­from­great­britain/ 1/3Tweet 0Voices of Change from Great BritainPosted on July 21, 2016 by SPEA IndianapolisShare 4By Bill Foley, Lecturer Arriving at Heathrow after long night ﬂights to Europe, our 21 undergraduate and graduatestudents accompanied by our teaching assistant and my wife and I were immediatelygreeted by the voices of change in the United Kingdom.Comprised of a mix of SPEA Indianapolis and Bloomington students, all of us found that wewere no longer in the European Union. With the June 23 referendum entitled Brexit (BritishExit) taking place and votes still being counted as we landed, the “street papers” of Londonanticipated the outcome with splendidly unappetizing banners as, “We’re Out,“ “See EUlater” and “Take a Bow Britain.” More civilized headlines read, “Birth of a New Britain,”“Brexit Earthquake,” “Britain Divided,” and “Brexit MP Pledge Loyalty to PM.”Preceded by a host of T­shirts reading “IN” or “OUT” all adorned with the Union Jack, thiswas an undisguised conﬂict between two unforgiving sides, often resulting in ﬁghts andeven the inopportune and violent death of MP Jo Cox on June 16. Immediately,Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron resigned eﬀective October 1, or untilParliament could agree upon a new successor. Before the students could catch a breathover these two events, on July 6 Sir John Chilcot at Westminster released to a dismayednation a lengthy report that former and living Prime Minister Tony Blair (Labour Party) hadAbout SPEA IUPUIAt SPEA, people learn how towork in government, nonproﬁtand business roles to makepositive changes in theircommunities, their states,their countries and the world.SPEA students major inmaking a diﬀerence.Receive updatesfrom SPEA IUPUIGet the latest blog posts onSPEA news and views, straightto your inbox.ex: someone@mydomain.comSubscribeBlog categoriesSelect CategoryRecent PostsIndiana Chief JusticeLoretta Rush to SPEAgrads: “You’re making yourcommunities better places”April 29, 2017Q&A with Elite 50 winnerRahael Mathew,MSCJPS’17 April 20, 2017Research on competitivegiving will shed light onimpact on philanthropyApril 14, 2017MSCJPS grad student KatieHeinz is ﬁrst to defendthesis research April 11,20172017 Plater Medallionwinner: Taylor Rhodes April7, 2017Making a DiﬀerenceNews and views from SPEA IndianapolisLike 4IUPUI5/12/2017 Voices of Change from Great Britain – Making a Differencehttp://blogs.iu.edu/speaindy/2016/07/21/voices­of­change­from­great­britain/ 2/3unwittingly led the United Kingdom into a major war based on ﬂawed intelligence andbefore exhausting all peace eﬀorts.Protests broke out along the Thames with many wearing Tony Blair masks smeared with“bloody” red paint, and with Blair now being threatened with lawsuits from the relatives ofthe dead U.K. soldiers. His then­secret comments to President George Bush in July 2002that, “I will be with you…Whatever…” now became the headlines from prestigiousnewspapers such as the Manchester Guardian down to The Daily Mirror. Shortly thereafter,historically on July 13,  Theresa May became just the second female Prime Minster of theU.K. of 76 PMs since Sir Robert Walpole was ﬁrst appointed in 1721. In just three weeks ourstudents, borrowing from a Dean Acheson title, were “present at the creation” of foursweeping changes. Regrettably, they were also here later for “the slaughter of theinnocents” in nearby Nice, France, and distant Turkey.In our SPEA­V 482/582 U.S. and U.K. National Security class at King’s College London,these events prompted excellent discussion. We also immersed ourselves in U.K.government with speakers, including the former Director of the GovernmentCommunications Headquarters — the U.K.’s National Security Agency; a former Director ofthe U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Oﬃce; the former U.K. Director of Civil Contingencies­Home Secretary; plus two distinguished senior faculty from U.K. universities wholectured about Russian President Vladimir Putin, NATO and Terrorism; and a former U.S.senior foreign service oﬃcer. Our students were also able to try on the robes of the judgesof the past  in the Victorian Gothic style building opened by Queen Victoria in 1882 after asplendid brieﬁng and tour on how the Royal High Courts of Justice operate.Additionally, on July 7 at Hyde Park on a splendid morning but in a solemn ceremony, we allsadly laid ﬂowers against the tall, silver markers that honor the 52 people who were killedby terrorist bombings in the city on July 7, 2005. Regrettably, without seeing either Holmesor Watson, high­ranking oﬃcials of the New Scotland Yard briefed our class in the LondonMetropolitan Police’s National Counter Terrorism and Policing Center on major trends interrorism. Our American colleagues were very kind to host our class as well at “TheEmbassy to the Court of St. James” — the American Embassy at Grosvenor’s SquareLondon — discussing U.S. national security issues. We concluded our class excursions witha private tour and brieﬁng at Westminster Abbey, built in 960, and visited the site of thecoronation of all kings and queens of the U.K. since 1066. We ended there with lunch on theTerrance adjoining Parliament.Participating in other tours and brieﬁngs as well, our students and all Indiana UniversityLondon students traveled to Bath, to see the Roman Ruins originally constructed there byJulius Caesar in 55 B.C.; to Stonehenge amazingly erected in 3,000 B.C.; energetically“hopped on and hopped oﬀ” a full bus tour of London; took a boat trip down the Thames inthe early evening; viewed London from the London Eye — the world’s largest “Ferris Wheel”built for the 2000 Millennium World’s Fair; and had a personal tour of the stoic butimmense Tower of London hosting the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom, includingthose of the current Queen Elizabeth II.Our London class of the summer of 2016 in this diverse and vibrant European capitol of10.2 million, with additionally 16.1 million tourists christening it the world’s No. 1 in tourism,will long remember many things. High on that list will be the fact they were present in anunprecedented time in British history — when an entire government and nation turneddirection, through the voices of change, and they saw all of it ﬁrsthand.Filed under: SPEA Study AbroadSearch Posts IUPUI5/12/2017 Voices of Change from Great Britain – Making a Differencehttp://blogs.iu.edu/speaindy/2016/07/21/voices­of­change­from­great­britain/ 3/3Connect with us.    School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IUPUI 801 W. Michigan Street, BS 3025 Indianapolis, IN 46202F U L F I L L I N G  the  P R O M I S ECopyright © 2016 The Trustees of Indiana UniversityPrivacy Notice | Accessibility HelpIUPUI

Voices of Change from Great Britain

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Voices of Change from Great Britain

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