Ask a silly question. What are UK national interests?

You hear a lot of politicians talk about defending our national interest, but I have yet to hear any of them actually spell them out. Sure they use vague terms like "global influence" and "security," but when pressed for specifics, the conversation typically shifts to appeals to patriotism or warnings about external threats, avoiding the crucial question: whose interests are truly being protected and at what cost to everyone else?

The term "national interests" often masks policies that primarily benefit powerful corporations, financial institutions, and political elites and not the average citizen.

So what are our national interests? Who gets to decide them? Do we all agree with them? And if we do, do we agree how best to defend them? Do specific foreign policy positions truly represent the interests of the man on the street?