This study examines the communication of conceptual metaphors in contemporary narratives of British politics, and specifically, the competitive communication of a Commonwealth 'family of nations' metaphor in the context of ongoing Brexit debates. This line of inquiry has been pursued through an analysis of parliamentary speeches made in the House of Commons and the House of Lords in the period from 23 June 2015 (1 year before the EU Referendum) through October 2018, facilitated by the use of computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software. Although multiple 'family of nations' metaphors were identified, British parliamentarians made more references to the Commonwealth as a family unit than other multinational groupings, and two prominent variants of this family metaphor have been defined.Speakers competed for control over the meaning of the base metaphor, with mainly English Conservative speakers communicating a positive aspirational variant (framing the Commonwealth as a historically-rooted, harmonious and prosperous alternative to the EU), while speakers from the other main parties communicated a competing critical judgmental variant (framing the Commonwealth as discriminatory, unequal and failing to defend shared human rights principles). It is argued that this metaphor, and particularly its positive aspirational variant, contributes to a broader communicative effort to encourage the imagination of a transnational and global British orientation and identity outside Europe.

This study examines how (and how well) politicians in the UK Parliament use their historical knowledge in debates about intra–Commonwealth trade following Brexit. Based on a rigorous analysis of 2 days of parliamentary debates in the House of Commons and House of Lords in early 2017, one of our conclusions is that UK parliamentarians used their historical knowledge in cross-domain (the practice of applying historical knowledge to a field of human activity that is very different from the original historical circumstances) ways. Our study thus develops our understanding of the role of analogical reasoning in the cognition of policymakers. On the other hand, although Conservative speakers did not refer to a wide range of economic or trade historical topics, they did use their historical knowledge from other domains in the promotion of deepening intra–Commonwealth ties as an alternative to the Europe-dominated focus of British international policies since 1973. In these ways, our study thus adds to our knowledge of how policymakers use historical knowledge to understand complex issues such as Brexit.

Shortly following Canada's controversial adoption of nuclear weapon roles in NORAD and NATO in 1963 the focus of nuclear debates shifted to the potential impact on Canadian and international security of the construction of US anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems. This article expands the focus of scholarship on the ABM issue from the political and policymaking settings to include members of the attentive elite and the news media, and finds these groups deeply divided between liberal and conservative internationalists. On the one hand, supporters of liberal internationalism believed that AMB systems would destabilize the international security environment and ultimately increase the likelihood of nuclear war. Conservative internationalists took the opposite position, arguing that the systems represented a necessary addition to the Western nuclear deterrent and would make nuclear war less likely. In other words, the ABM debate exposed deep divisions in Canadian society between those who preferred diplomatic and multilateral versus military means of achieving middle power goals in the international system.

Political myths contribute to effective political communication in their ability to render a social group's world and experiences more coherent by providing stories or narratives that explain where it came from, how it came to be in its present condition, and what its future holds. One such contemporary political myth, identified as Global Britain, has been vigorously promoted by English conservative politicians and public intellectualsboth before and after the 2016 European Union membership referendum -in an effort to alter perceptions about what the UK's proper orientation and identity should be in the international system. Global Britain's advocates view Brexit as an opportunity to reclaim Britain's internationalist credentials by renewing old relationships with people's and societies in its former empire. Among many rhetorical tools used in the articulation of Global Britain is a Commonwealth as a 'family of nations' conceptual metaphor which contributes content to the political myth and force behind its main purpose -promoting the imagination of a positive future when the British people and their country will range out in the world among their closest 'kith and kin' rather than being tied down in what Global Britain's advocates view as an inefficient, undemocratic and sclerotic European Union.

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