In this video the former First Minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones, discusses with Brendan Donnelly and Glyndwr Cennydd Jones current thinking in Wales on the UK’s constitutional future. All three participants drew attention to the apparent contradiction between claims of Welsh and Scottish sovereignty on the one hand and the [...]
Talk continues about the coming of the digital pound. Like the closure of high street banks, it is the presumed inevitable consequence of the decline in the use of coins and banknotes. We are told that by 2031 only 6 per cent of Britain’s transactions will be in cash, the [...]
In this Federal Trust video, Geoff Martin, former representative of the European Commission in Belfast and London, discusses the situation in Northern Ireland after the Windsor Framework. He expects an initiative from the British government designed to encourage the DUP to return to Stormont. Interest will then switch to the [...]
In its time, Europe has known a lot of empires. Some, like Napoleon’s, arose from an excess of revolutionary fervour. Others, pre-eminently the Hapsburgs, were based on dynastic inheritance. The Soviet Union was forged by Bolshevist ideology. The Ottomans had a religious cause. Some empires were more enlightened than others, [...]
In this Federal Trust video Professor Sam Whimster and Dr. Andrew Black argue in favour of a radical overhaul of the relationship between the central British government and regional/local authorities. In recent years, the UK has become a more centralised political system, not least through the financial dominance of the [...]
Ten years after the announcement of the referendum on British membership of the EU, the debate about the EU is returning to Westminster. While mainstream political parties argue that Brexit is a reality, citizens and businesses increasingly feel betrayed. So, what to do about the EU? ‘Eurowhiteness’ The book ‘Eurowhiteness’ [...]
21st October 2023 WHAT WILL THE EU LOOK LIKE IN 2033? Joint Conference by The Federal Trust and James Madison Charitable Trust The next decade is likely to see significant widening and deepening of the Union. Whether because of Brexit or because of external events, rapid reform for the EU, [...]
by Dr Alan Hick Dr Hick is a Board Member of New Europeans International and a former senior official at the European Economic and Social Committee In the spring of 1979, I interrupted my studies at the European University Institute in Florence in order to campaign in the first European [...]
Devolution at national level acknowledges that today’s UK is a construct of formerly discrete entities whose diverse histories and identities are enduringly recognised at an institutional level. Decentralisation within England, by contrast, involves the reorganisation of power within one territory of significant population size (c. 56 million) in order better [...]
In this Federal Trust video John Denham, Glyndwr Jones and Brendan Donnelly discuss the need for constitutional reform to preserve the UK. They conclude that reform is particularly needed in England, both to improve the governance of England itself and to distinguish between English and British political identities. Confusion between [...]
