Ben Wellings

Ben Wellings is an expert on the politics of nationalism in the United Kingdom and contemporary Europe, and the part played by national identity in the political polarisation within and between nations and states. His current research focuses on nationalism and disintegration in the UK and the EU, and the politics of the Anglosphere.

He comments regularly on national and international television and radio for the ABC, Channel 10, Bloomberg, Sky News Al-Jazeera, the BBC, as well as contributing op-eds for major newspapers and via online media.

He is a regular public speaker: you can watch his talk at the Australian insitutte of International Affairs (Vic) on the transition from Boris Johnson to Liz Truss here, with analysis of Rishi Sunak's fortunes here. In 2012 he debated one of the future leaders of the UK’s Brexit Campaign, Daniel Hannan MEP in Auckland: Watch his debate with Daniel Hannan MEP at the New Zealand Initiative in May 2012. He writes regularly for The Conversation, with Australian perspectives on British and European poliitics.

Before joining Monash University in 2013 he was the Convenor of European Studies at the Australian National University from 2004.

He was educated at the University of Sussex (including an Erasmus year at the Université de Nantes), Edinburgh University and the Australian National University. He has worked in the House of Commons, for a public affairs company in Edinburgh, as an assistant curator at the National Museum of Australia and as a merchant seaman on the English Channel.

He is a sought after public speaker and clear communicator of complex ideas to diverse audiences.  As well as providing expert commentary for Australian and Asian media outlets and presenting his research to government in Australia, the UK and at NATO HQ in Brussels, he recently gave one of the Australian Senate’s Occasional Lectures in Canberra: ‘Taking Back Control: Parliament, Sovereignty and Brexit‘.

He has supervised PhD theses on populism and the British Political Tradition, Helmut Kohl's nationalism and foreign policy-making in the European Union. He is avialable to supervise topics on nationalism in Europe, British politics, the European Union and the Anglosphere.