With the UK on the brink of exiting the European Union, prominent British voices are calling for the country to reconsider its decision to leave. A crucial parliamentary vote later this year will be the key moment, heralding either a last stand in favour of Britain's place in Europe or the unravelling of the country's forty-year membership of the world's most sophisticated supranational entity. In this lecture the former British deputy Prime Minister explores the origins of the UK’s troubled relationship with the EU, explains the current deep divisions in British politics, and charts an alternative course for the UK within a reformed Europe.

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Prior to his entry into British politics, he served as a leading Member of the European Parliament on trade and industry affairs and as an international trade negotiator in the European Commission dealing with the accession of China and Russia into the World Trade Organization.

As Deputy Prime Minister, Sir Nick occupied the second highest office in the country at a time when the United Kingdom was recovering from a deep recession following the banking crisis of 2008, and hugely controversial decisions were needed to restore stability to the public finances. During that time, he oversaw referenda on electoral reform and Scottish independence, and extensive reforms to the education, health and pensions systems. He was particularly associated with landmark changes to the funding of schools, early years’ education and the treatment of mental health within the NHS. His book, ‘Politics: Between the Extremes’, is a reflection on his time in Government and the place of liberalism in the current political landscape.

Sir Nick is one of the most high-profile pro-European voices in British politics, and has played an influential role in the debate leading up to and since the EU referendum in June 2016. His insight into the most senior levels of UK government, combined with an integral understanding and experience of European politics, contacts at the highest levels of government across the EU, and fluency in five European languages, mean that his views and analysis on the current Government’s Brexit negotiations continue to be in high demand. He published his second best-selling book - ‘How to Stop Brexit - and Make Britain Great Again’ - in October 2017.

As well as leading his small think tank, Open Reason, Sir Nick is a Global Commissioner for the Global Commission on Drugs Policy, Chairman of the Social Mobility Foundation and a Visiting Professor in Practice at the LSE’s School of Public Policy. He remains an outspoken advocate of civil liberties and center ground politics, of radical measures to boost social mobility, and of an internationalist approach to world affairs. He received a knighthood in the 2018 New Years Honours list, for his political and public service.

Nemtsov is a documentary film about the late leader of the Russian opposition, directed by his friend and colleague Vladimir Kara-Murza. The film chronicles a remarkable political life. It is a story told by those who knew Boris Nemtsov at different times: when he was a young scientist and took his first steps in politics; when he held high government offices and was considered Boris Yeltsin’s heir apparent; when he led Russia’s democratic opposition to Vladimir Putin. The film contains rare archival footage, including from the Nemtsov family. Nemtsov is a portrait. It is not about death. It is about the life of a man who could have been president of Russia.

The film is in Russian, with English subtitles. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Vladimir Kara-Murza.

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Vladimir Kara-Murza is vice chairman of the Open Russia movement and chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom. He was a longtime colleague of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov. Kara-Murza is a former deputy leader of the People’s Freedom Party and was a candidate for the Russian State Duma. He has testified on Russian affairs before parliaments in Europe and North America and played a key role in the passage of the Magnitsky Act, a US law that imposed targeted sanctions on Russian human rights violators. Twice, in 2015 and 2017, he was poisoned with an unknown substance and left in a coma; the attempts on his life were widely viewed as politically motivated. Kara-Murza writes regular commentary for the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, World Affairs, and other periodicals, and has previously worked as a journalist for Russian broadcast and print media, including Ekho Moskvy and Kommersant. He directed two documentary films, They Chose Freedom (on the dissident movement in the USSR) and Nemtsov (on the life of Boris Nemtsov). He is the author of Reform or Revolution (Moscow 2011) and a contributor to Russia’s Choices: The Duma Elections and After (London 2003), Russian Liberalism: Ideas and People (Moscow 2007), Why Europe Needs a Magnitsky Law (London 2013), and Boris Nemtsov and Russian Politics: Power and Resistance (Stuttgart 2018). Kara-Murza is a recipient of the Magnitsky Human Rights Award, the Sakharov Prize for Journalism as an Act of Conscience, and the Geneva Summit Courage Award. He holds an M.A. (Cantab.) in History from Cambridge. He is married, with three children.

This event is cosponsored by the Center for Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies and the European Security Initiative.