Scotland and Europe after the election
The outcome of the May 7 general election has delivered a majority government but not answered two pressing constitutional questions: the future of Scotland in the United Kingdom; and the future of the...
View ArticleThe UK’s negotiations with the EU
Now that the Conservatives have a majority government, we will have a referendum on membership of the European Union. This is scheduled to happen before the end of 2017, although there are signs that...
View ArticleOverview to Scottish Parliament European and External Relations Committee
This is an overview of Professor Michael Keating’s briefing to the Scottish Parliament European and External Relations Committee which took place on the 4 June 2015 discussing the United Kingdom’s...
View ArticleWhitehall should not have monopoly on renegotiating UK membership of EU
Some time in the next two years, Scots will face another referendum on whether the United Kingdom should remain in the European Union. This issue has become deeply entangled with the question of...
View ArticleCameron’s EU balancing act
David Cameron’s four demands outlined in the letter to the European Council will not satisfy his own Eurosceptics and may be too much for his EU partners to accept. It is not at all clear how some...
View ArticleScotland and Europe: The renegotiation agenda and the Scotland Bill
David Cameron’s proposed areas for renegotiation have implications for the Scottish Government, a situation that will increase once the Scotland Bill is passed. The distinct Scottish interest in the...
View ArticleHow much has Cameron gained from the renegotiation?
The outcome of the marathon European council can be interpreted in a narrow or a broad way. In the narrow interpretation, David Cameron has gained little, especially compared with his ambitions at the...
View ArticleConstitutional change is constant in these British isles
As the EU referendum campaign gathers momentum, polls show the UK almost evenly divided on the merits of staying in and pulling out. In Scotland, however, the ‘stay’ option is, at this stage, clearly...
View ArticleBrexit reflections – out means out
There is great uncertainty about what lies ahead for the UK’s relationship with the European Union but one thing is clear. Out means out. We will not have membership of the Union, with the right to...
View ArticleWhere next for a divided kingdom?
The outcome of the referendum has left the UK deeply divided, by age, class, education and territory. These divisions are not new but reflect emerging social cleavages as the old divides of the...
View ArticleHow could Scotland remain in the EU?
In 2014 Scotland voted by 55 per cent to stay in the United Kingdom. Now it has voted by a larger margin (62 per cent) to stay in the European Union. It cannot, it seems, remain in both and must...
View ArticleDoes Brexit need the consent of the devolved territories?
The UK Government has promised a UK-wide approach to Brexit but it is not clear what this means. For the devolved nations – Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – there is range of possibilities from...
View ArticleWhat role for the devolveds in Brexit?
On 24 October the plenary Joint Ministerial Committee [JMC (P)] of UK, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland leaders met for the first time in two years. The occasion for resurrecting what had become...
View ArticleConstitutional over-reach
It is well known that the United Kingdom does not have a codified, written constitution, to which reference can be made when matters of constitutional law are in question. Instead, there is a variety...
View ArticleWe are still a long way from federalism
The devolution settlements of 1999 were a way of squaring a circle. On the one hand, they gave the non-English parts of the United Kingdom elected assemblies in recognition of their distinct national...
View ArticleDebating Scotland
The independence referendum of 2014 divided Scotland into two camps, a division that has now become the principal dividing line in the nation’s politics. Yet it has not created a social or ethnic...
View ArticleMore powers to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, or power grab?
Brexit has numerous effects on the UK’s internal devolution settlement. One of the most difficult concerns powers coming back from Brussels and whether they will revert to Westminster or to the...
View ArticleBetween a rock and a hard place
The UK Government and media seem to have been taken aback by the decision of the EU to introduce the question Gibraltar into the Brexit negotiations, insisting that any deal concerning Gibraltar must...
View ArticleMultidimensional competition: the new game in British politics
At one time, Scottish politics, like those elsewhere in Great Britain, divided rather clearly on the left-right axis, with elections disputed between Labour and the Conservatives. In the mid-twentieth...
View ArticleEU referendum: one year on – Brexit and devolution
There are two very different views of the UK’s largely unwritten constitution. One, the “Westminster” view, is based on the principle of parliamentary sovereignty and supremacy. This holds that the UK...
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