21 09, 2021

Levelling Up … Public Spending?

By |2021-09-21T12:13:33+00:00September 21st, 2021|Categories: Devolution, Federalism, Federalism, Scotland, UK Devolution|Tags: , , , |

by Prof. Colin Talbot, Emeritus Professor of Government at the University of Manchester, and Dr. Carole Talbot, Research Associate, University of Cambridge   ‘Levelling Up’ is back in the headlines with the move of Michael Gove to what has now become the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. One [...]

28 05, 2021

Sovereign Conquest?

By |2021-05-28T11:17:08+00:00May 28th, 2021|Categories: Brexit, Coronavirus, Devolution, Federalism, Federalism, Scotland, UK Constitution, UK Devolution|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

“Take back control” was one of the main battle-cries of Brexit. Underpinning it was the notion that the UK had ceded its sovereignty to the EU and was no-longer an ‘independent’ country. We will leave aside the issue of whether or not Brexit really represents a return of sovereignty to [...]

3 03, 2021

Federalism for the United Kingdom: an answer that raises questions

By |2021-03-04T11:21:22+00:00March 3rd, 2021|Categories: Brexit, Devolution, Federalism, Federalism, Scotland, UK Constitution, UK Devolution|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

Federalism is best defined as a system in which constitutional authority is divided between a ‘federal’ tier of government and a set of territorial ‘states’. It is a comprehensive and symmetrical model in which the entirety (or almost the entirety) of the country is covered by states, which have identical [...]

18 12, 2020

Can the United Kingdom be saved through federation? Lessons from 1919

By |2020-12-18T15:05:36+00:00December 18th, 2020|Categories: Devolution, Federalism, Federalism, UK Constitution, UK Devolution|Tags: , , , , , , |

by Sam Whimster Professor Sam Whimster is Deputy Director & Head of UK Futures Programme at Global Policy Institute; he is also Editor of Max Weber Studies.   Andrew Adonis has recently argued that the present tensions disuniting Britain can be resolved by following the example of the Federal Republic [...]

15 12, 2020

Valery Giscard d’Estaing – a European Dreamer

By |2020-12-16T10:07:10+00:00December 15th, 2020|Categories: EU Policies & Institutions, Europe, Federalism, Future of Europe|Tags: , , , , , |

by Stefan Collignon Professor of Political Economy at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa; Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics   This article first appeared in Italian on Euractiv.it (translated by Roberto Castaldi)   No other statesman has left a greater mark on Europe than Valery Giscard D’Estaing (1926 – [...]

4 12, 2020

Brexit and the decline of democracy

By |2020-12-04T13:53:37+00:00December 4th, 2020|Categories: Brexit, Coronavirus, Devolution, Europe, Europe, Federalism, Federalism, UK Constitution, UK Devolution|Tags: , , , , , , |

“The fabric of democracy is always fragile everywhere because it depends on the will of citizens to protect it, and when they become scared, when it becomes dangerous for them to defend it, it can go very quickly.” (Margaret Atwood) The deadline for ending the “transitional” arrangements for Britain’s relations [...]

13 10, 2020

Brexit: removing the connective tissue of the United Kingdom?

By |2020-11-14T12:25:11+00:00October 13th, 2020|Categories: Brexit, Devolution, Europe, Europe, Federalism, Federalism, Scotland, UK Constitution, UK Devolution|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

The United Kingdom (UK) and what is now the European Union (EU) were intertwined for nearly half a century. Consequently, Brexit means more than the UK removing itself from the EU. It involves extracting the EU from the UK. The four years after the EU referendum of 23 June 2016 [...]

13 07, 2020

Scotland’s England Problem

By |2020-07-13T10:29:51+00:00July 13th, 2020|Categories: Brexit, Devolution, Federalism, Federalism, Scotland, UK Constitution, UK Devolution|Tags: , , , |

That the UK’s union of four nations is under strain is not new to anyone who has been paying attention. But the combined impacts of Brexit, Covid-19 and the Conservative government under Boris Johnson are driving an increasing wedge between Scotland and the rest of the UK – or, more [...]

26 05, 2020

Federal states deal best with the pandemic

By |2020-06-04T11:19:34+00:00May 26th, 2020|Categories: Blog, Coronavirus, Devolution, Federalism, Federalism, Scotland|Tags: , , , |

by David GowEditor of Sceptical.scot, Senior Adviser at Social Europe and Senior Adviser at Acumen Public Affairs. He is former European Business Editor of The Guardian and worked for The Scotsman and London Weekend Television. 26th May 2020 Federal Germany has won substantial plaudits around the world, not least in other parts of Europe, for its comparative [...]

20 05, 2020

Weaponising the Exit Agreement: the ongoing Irish dimension of Brexit

By |2020-06-04T08:22:21+00:00May 20th, 2020|Categories: Brexit, Europe, Federalism, UK Devolution|Tags: , , |

by Dr Andrew BlickReader in Politics and Contemporary History at King’s College London; Senior Research Fellow at the Federal Trust 20th May 2020 Prior to the referendum of 23 June 2016, little attention was given at UK level to its possible implications for Northern Ireland. But in the wake of the [...]

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