18 May 2021
The UK’s Online Safety Bill: Safe, Harmful, Unworkable?
On 12 May 2021, the UK Government published the long-awaited Online Safety Bill. While the UK Government aims to show “global leadership with our groundbreaking laws to usher in a new age of accountability for tech and bring fairness and accountability to the online world”, this claim is more than doubtful. Continue reading >>
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17 May 2021
Nation of Animal Lovers
On May 12, 2021, the UK government published an Action Plan for Animal Welfare setting out reform plans to protect animals both within its borders and overseas. In this plan, the UK government pledges to further steps in its efforts to promote animal welfare and to recognize animals as sentient beings in law. As the ‘Nation of Animal Lovers’ the UK has a comparatively impressive record of animal welfare legislation. Yet, the tone of government communication is tainted by adversity against the EU in the context of Brexit. Continue reading >>
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17 May 2021
Fast-tracking Scotland’s re-entry to the EU
As the dust settles with a pro-independence - though not an SNP - majority in the Scottish Parliament after the May 2021 elections, it is worth considering what an independent Scotland’s (accelerated) path back to the EU could look like. Increasing the speed at which an independent Scotland could rejoin the EU is primarily an issue of political will and domestic preparation. Continue reading >>07 May 2021
A Government (Un)Governed?
On 16 December 2020, despite rising rates of infection and the widely predicted ‘second wave’ already impacting neighbouring European countries, Prime Minister Boris Johnson mocked the opposition for wanting to ‘cancel Christmas’ by reintroducing nationwide lockdown restrictions. Three days later, a nationwide lockdown in England was introduced (inadvertently mimicking the March 2020 commitment that London had ‘zero prospect’ of lockdown, four days before it was enforced). The lockdown – closing schools, universities and a majority of businesses which were deemed non-essential and prohibiting gatherings of more than two people outdoors from separate households – continued until 12 April 2021 when restrictions began to be lessened through a phased ‘roadmap out of lockdown’. Such political hyperbole by the executive and lax response, followed by sudden U-turn policy making (‘essay crisis’ governance) and severely restrictive measures, have characterised much of the response to the pandemic in the UK. Continue reading >>
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13 April 2021
The United Kingdom on Race
The United Kingdom’s Commission on Ethnic and Racial Disparities, has recently published a report, which has been widely discredited since its launch by charities, education unions, academics and politicians. Using the UK’s progressive track record of legal provisions on racial discrimination, the report moves to obscure racism’s systemic aspects. There is a profound disconnect between the theory of the UK’s legal protections against racism and the lived reality of race in Britain, which reveals race as an important and persistent determinant of social experience. Continue reading >>
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31 March 2021
Consent to Govern
One of the biggest difficulties associated with understanding the constitutional position of the monarch in the United Kingdom has to do with the fact that they are simultaneously three things: the head of an institution, a symbol and a person with private interests. All three of these aspects have combined in recent revelations surrounding the constitutional requirement of Queen’s (or Royal) Consent, revelations that cast considerable doubt on the place of that practice in the contemporary constitutional landscape. Continue reading >>
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25 March 2021
„Hier ist Netflix mit der Tagesschau“
Aktuelle Diskussionen zur Reform des Rundfunkrechts in Großbritannien ziehen in Betracht, öffentlich-rechtliche Inhalte alternativ über private Streamingdienste zu verbreiten. Auch in Deutschland sind Grundsatzfragen zur Zukunft des öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunks ungeklärt und auch radikale Veränderungen denkbar. Politisch erzwungene, strukturelle Änderungen werden wahrscheinlicher, je länger sich die aktuelle Entwicklung der relevanten Marktanteile bei ARD und ZDF fortsetzt. Doch es stellt sich die Frage, ob und inwieweit auch in Deutschland eine Regelung nach dem Britischen Vorschlag (verfassungs-)rechtlich überhaupt möglich ist. Continue reading >>17 March 2021
“Yes, you can… but only if you’re quiet”
The UK is undertaking changes to its ‘law of protest’, which have the capacity drastically to re-orientate the relationship between citizen and state in favour of the latter. The draft Bill takes little or no account of the important role protest plays in a free society and coincides with police officers forcefully breaking up a peaceful vigil to mark the murder of Sarah Everard last week. These images highlight how unbalanced, unnecessary and unprincipled the changes are – many of its planned changes seek to plug non-existent gaps. Continue reading >>
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