This article explores the relationship between globalisation and the development of the British and Norwegian welfare states. Focusing on the welfare state policies of the British and Norwegian labour parties and their relationships to the European Union (an important indicator of the impact of globalisation on West European nation-states), it argues that despite the growing importance of global dynamics and pressures, national-level forces were the predominate factors in the development of the British and Norwegian welfare states and relations to the EU in the 1980s and 1990s. Consequently, globalisation does not lead to welfare state convergence, but to divergence, interwoven with national-level dynamics.