Democracy & Citizenship

The Good Friday Agreement was a landmark achievement that completely opened all the borders between Ireland and Northern Ireland. This remarkable initiative brought peace at last at the turn of the millennium. That peace is now threatened by Brexit. The Tory government is hellbent on a hard Brexit, meaning the UK will leave the EU […]

EU negotiators beware. At least some of those on the other side of the table from you don’t just want Britain to leave the EU. They want to see the end of the EU altogether. That’s been the aim of prominent Brexit campaigners from the start. And it’s certainly the aim of the guy who […]

If you take the wrong job, you can resign. If you choose the wrong partner, you can leave. If you go on the wrong journey, you can turn back. In our personal lives, second thoughts are allowed. Thinking again, with the benefit of more information, knowledge and experience, often provides a superior result. As the […]

Tens of thousands of EU citizens have decided to leave Britain since the referendum. The latest figures reveal the highest outflow of EU migrants for a decade, and a huge reduction in the number of EU migrants moving to the UK. 130,000 citizens from the EU decided to leave Britain in the year to September […]

A good rule of thumb is that when you’re in a hole, you stop digging. Unless, of course, you’re in the tunnelling business. The British government is very much not in that line of work – such things being outsourced – so the rule would seem to apply in spades. And yet is spades that […]

Next year, the UK will be the only EU member ever to leave. No other countries are leaving. On the contrary, more countries are queuing to join. In the EU, Britain and Britons have a say and a vote on the running and the future direction of our continent. Every five years, we’ve been able […]

Publication resulting from the UACES 2017 PhD and ECR Conference The UK’s withdrawal from the European Union is bound to pose unique challenges for Northern Ireland, writes Clare Rice. Drawing on her research on anti-discrimination law in the region, she outlines the potential impact on the legal framework for equality and cross-community relations. The potential impact […]

How can we create spaces for critical discussion about the European Union? Vanessa Bilancetti writes in response to Rachael Dickson Hillyard’s article on alternative approaches to EU Studies. Through her own research on institutional responses to the economic crisis, Vanessa Bilancetti identifies dissenting voices that can enrich an ongoing debate. I have read with interest […]

Who knows what Boris Johnson really believes, least of all him? He previously said “what most people in this country want is the single market”, and he would personally vote to remain a member of it. He told the BBC Andrew Marr Show in 2012: ″We would like a new relationship. And it’s very simple […]

Half of the country satisfied, approximately the same part suffering from a severe hangover. That is, in a nutshell, the main outcome of the Czech presidential elections whose final took place in the last weekend of January. The reason behind this division of Czech society lies in the approximately 3 percentage points that made the […]