20 May 2026
To Identity and Beyond?
Commission v Hungary proved, unsurprisingly, yet another bold leap forward in the Court’s value jurisprudence. Central to the reasoning of the Court has been the notion that Article 2 forms part of “the very identity of the Union as a common legal order”, which popped up five times in the 44 short paragraphs of the Court’s reasoning on Article 2. While much attention has already been paid to the judgment, the role of the Court’s “identity rationale” in the judgment merits a separate examination. Continue reading >>
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20 May 2026
On Men and their Tractors
In a recent post, Suryapratim Roy discusses the Irish fuel price blockades that took place in April 2026. Most of its leaders identified as farmers, but the protests also had a far-right element. Roy identifies the protestors as a “fossil elite” of wealthy farmers seeking to preserve their own economic interest and characterises the protests as “a marriage of fossil capital and racial capital”. I reflect and respond to a part of Roy’s argument. The answer, I believe, lies in the appropriation by the far-right of a hitherto innocuous indigenous Irish archetype: the Men with Tractors. Continue reading >>
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