Philip Stephens is a writer, commentator and historian. His latest book Britain Alone: the Path from Suez to Brexit, was published by Faber in London and New York in 2021.

Stephens is a Contributing Editor at the Financial Times where he was previously Director of the Editorial Board and Chief Political Commentator. He is an Honorary Governor of the Ditchley Foundation and a member of the steering group of the Anglo-French Colloque. He is a Richard von Weizsacker fellow at the Bosch Academy in Berlin. He is a frequent speaker and moderator at international conferences on European, transatlantic and global affairs, and offers analysis and advice to business leaders on geopolitical risk. He has spoken and moderated in recent years at events hosted by Chatham House, the Xiangshan Forum, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Aspen Italia, the German Marshall Fund, the Asan Forum, the Stockholm China Forum, the Franco-British Colloque and the Munich Security Conference.

He has won the three main prizes in British political journalism, being named as winner of the David Watt prize for Outstanding Political Journalism, as Political Journalist of the Year by the UK Political Studies Association, and as Political Journalist of the Year in the British Press Awards. As well as Britain Alone, he is the author of Politics and the Pound, a study of British economic and European policy, and of Tony Blair, the Price of Leadership, a biography of the former prime minister. He travels widely and is a frequent broadcaster.

Philip Stephens was educated at Wimbledon College and at Worcester College, Oxford, where he took a degree in modern history.