It was wonderful to bring together old friends and new from across Wilton Park’s global network to celebrate 80 years of what our founder Heinz Koeppler described at the time as an ‘heretical’ idea – that people with opposing and strongly held beliefs can be brought together to agree, or disagree well, through honest, discreet dialogue.
Current events, including in the Middle East, underline why this model is both ever more under pressure, and therefore ever more important to prove. The world is both fracturing and realigning in new and unexpected ways. This demands a reframing of longstanding assumptions, including around the intersection of trade and national security.
All of this was a central focus of our recent Global Impact Group discussion, which brought policy makers, business and experts together to consider implications of the US/Israel-Iran conflict. For the UK, and for Europe, the economic and political shocks will crescendo well into the future, implying a very different set of relationships between state actors, the private sector and civil society. Coordinating and navigating the transition to this future will require a degree of leadership, respect and wisdom which remains, at best, work in progress.
Yet both our 80th anniversary reception and Global Impact Group Retreat provided an important signal of hope. There are deep reserves and networks of expertise and good will seeking the opportunity to collaborate and share for the common good. The responsibility of organisations such as Wilton Park is to convene and mobilise these networks for UK and global benefit, and we are ever more determined, and well positioned, to do so.
Tom Cargill
Chief Executive
