Fascism isn't "a gimmick" Destroying our entire national community, wiping out the economy, and ruining the lives of hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens - who now live with the fact that threat was taken seriously as a policy proposal - is not the endpoint of any "reasonable concerns"

This is the worse exposé ever! "It was easy to buy black market tickets. 100% of the ones we bought worked fine and one even came with a free pint! Here's a handy graphic of the sellers who sorted us out, with prices. By the way, please don't do this." www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articl...

This isn't funny. There's something very wrong with the UK government attitude to higher education & it survived a change of gvt. Also - more broadly - it's yet another piece of evidence that Labour government ministers and their advisers live in a weird right-wing Americanised information space.

If you don't say the opening "hello" in its secret 0.1s window which you can't actually detect, the person you called then says "hello? hello? hello? hello? hello? hello? hello? hello? hello? hello? hello? hello?" and during that outburst it's "interrupting them" to say anything. even "hello"

We can hear Oasis in the garden. Heaton Park is 10 miles away.

I was really struck on my recent visit to Paris by the extent to which France is taking these kind of things (...gestures broadly) very seriously. And that part of that is a widespread sense that Brexit and post-Brexit UK is a cautionary tale, a source of example of things to avoid.

Here I argue the Home Secretary's case that Palestine Action is concerned in terrorism is lacking in evidence, and proscribing the group is disproportionate. It will criminalise a significant proportion of civil society and be counterproductive for maintaining safety.

Come and spend some time with us! Liverpool is a great city, and I think previous visitors will also vouch that it's a good place to come and talk about public law. (other disciplines are welcome too etc etc)

The issue: 1. Maybe some bodies should be sticklers for their anti-protest rights - but not unis. It's incompatible with the mission of universities to aggressively police protest on campus. So even if the advice is legally sound, soliciting, hiding behind, and spreading it is bad practice.

This is true. I'd add: 11. This isn't something a government is ever likely to pursue unilaterally. The most realistic way to get this reform on the statute book is for the Lords to amend it into a government proposal which - inevitably - lacks it. And (Meg's number 4) that means this one.

This looks right up Emma Waring's street. (I don't think Emma is on here. Can someone bring it to her attention so my pun isn't totally wasted?)

Yes please.

It won’t be immediate, but I guarantee that in 5-10 years both reputation and market success will be built on the capacity of a university to stand over its claim that student education and assessment have not been compromised by AI.

Superb article here on devolution in the UK Supreme Court, calling for an interpretive approach which recognises the accommodation of national pluralism as devolution’s central purpose: academic.oup.com/ojls/advance...

I shall be guest editor of Public Law’s Special Analysis section next spring: “The Public Order Act 1986 at Forty” Really looking forward to curating pieces by: @crwerren.bsky.social on policing public order @deanknight.bsky.social on NZ recent proposals @katrinanavickas.bsky.social looking at

We have doctoral funding (via teaching fellowships) advertised at the moment: www.liverpool.ac.uk/courses/grad... This is genuinely a great place to do public law. If you have a proposal in mind, or already up your sleeve, do get in touch. Informal enquiries are very welcome.

👀"A number" of jobs being advertised at Nottingham!

1/3 What can we learn from HS2 about the role of judicial review in delivering infrastructure projects? I have a new *open access* article in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies looking at the many JRs of HS2: doi.org/10.1093/ojls.... In it, I suggest the dominant political critique of JR may be

Probably right - but why go to Albania, and announce a thing for which Albania would be an obvious contender location, inevitably leading to people asking (they are right there!) "Oh, is it you Albania?", knowing they will say "No, it's not Albania" It just piles stupid optics on a stupid proposal

I’ve been doing research on declarations of incompatibility under the Human Rights Act 1998, where the courts find legislation incompatible with human rights law. I analysed every declaration issued by the courts and have some interesting findings to share

Are the EU free movement rules wildly out of step with the new realities of work? My new book, the MARKET CITIZENSHIP ILLUSION answers this by looking at the law in action – and it is available now to *everyone for free*! www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?do... 🧵on key arguments... (1/10)

An important legal ruling finding against the UK Government's protest laws- the Court of Appeal has dismissed the UK Government's appeal of the Divisional Court's finding that recent protest regulations went beyond the scope of the Government's legal powers. 1/2

The government should not have pursued this appeal (the ultra vires part, that is) and this outcome is quite right. (for those skim reading... don't panic, I think the subheading at [57] is a typo)

The Court of Appeal on thee Public Order Act 1986 (Serious Disruption to the Life of the Community) Regulations 2023: www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/wp-content/u... Appeal dismissed:

Also (as I found out in Paris the other week) Brexit has become the internationally recognised yardstick of how not to do a referendum. It's not even contentious: the talking point was what not to do (and those others are taking the pathologies more seriously than we have, so far at least)

WTAF? None of these would be a legitimate target of sanctions. The UK government should not cooperate. And it should also be preparing to take measures itself to protect their finances (even if not publicly at this stage), not just "advising" them to do so.

This event yesterday was an absolute pleasure. The future of our discipline is in rude health.

This new case is a remarkable argument, taken alongside his recent judicial review - which turned (amongst other things) on the unavailability of alternative arrangements for detaining him. The cumulative logic of the two (yes, there are nuances etc) is that he is currently un-detainable.

Parliament is being recalled tomorrow to pass legislation to protect British Steel. This will be the 34th time the House of Commons has been recalled and the 33rd time the House of Lords has been recalled since the current rules were introduced in 1947.

Fortunately the UK is famously good at trilemmas. Surely "alternative arrangements" (aka magical thinking) can solve this.

Bonjour le Sénat! I'm in (cloud-free) Paris to spend a day talking about referendums.

Maybe Trump used expedia to decide where to impose tariffs?

If anyone wants to know how many pages long the Le Pen judgment is, it's their lucky day: the number 152 is doing quite the copy/paste tour du monde. On the other hand, the text on those pages is rather more elusive. Can anyone advise me where to find the decision (if indeed, this is possible)?

Come for @spinninghugo.bsky.social's snark about Eynsham and planning. Stay (trust me, scroll down to @defencebrief.bsky.social) for the £50million phantom park and ride! (I used to commute along there, sometimes by bike, to a graduate IT job in Witney, in what now seems like a previous life.)

This is fantastic. ukconstitutionallaw.org/2025/03/31/d... It has a little bit of everything - from nitty gritty admin law to abstract international relations, insider info shot through with telling attitudes, a wild mix of evidence for the legal realists and genuine concerns for the rule of law.

Our constitution very readily treats as important safeguards: (i) people with no claim to the legitimacy necessary to hold back, say, elected fascists ("The King", "The Civil Service") and (ii) those people's discretion in the face of ambiguity - they don't even have clear rules to point to!

1/7 Can the executive ‘safeguard’ the constitution? The UK Constitution Committee says yes, but I worry. The plural UK executive means this is unlikely. And if we want internal executive checks like the civil service to work, we need to strengthen them now. Trump 2.0 is a warning.

How to cover Marine Le Pen is a big test for French media. I'm not convinced they are passing. Welcomed into studio at 8pm, live, she looked directly into the camera and announced (to her "millions of supporters"): "La Cour Supreme, c'est Le Peuple" What an opportunity...

No, panopto. That is not the what the topic is called.

Obviously not the main issue, but the importance of Calvin's Case (!) to the legal position on birthright citizenship is a really great example of just how weird American law can look to UK eyes. (of course there are contrary examples where it is another kind of weird: weirdly familiar)

We're hosting this year's @ukcla.bsky.social early career workshop in constitutional law and theory. The panel includes @daniellalock.bsky.social. CfP below, apply now and please share to anyone who you think might be interested. @livunilawsj.bsky.social @livunislsj.bsky.social

It's fine. The present day ones won't be subject to the inconvenience of a trial.

Being completely unable to successfully type the word refendum refeerendum referendmu reeferendum REFERENDUM (🥳) at first - or often even second, third etc - attempt is pretty annoying, especially for someone writing something about referendums.

This isn't (here/just) a conceptual issue about the rule of law The government was elected on a manifesto which *for reasons of strategy and reputation* made repeated promises to adopt a certain attitude towards international law i.e. it's a democratic issue, recently settled for the time being

I am not an international lawyer. But I do know that the warmth of Katie's invitation is authentic, that the event is great and participants always get a lot out of it, that Christine will be well worth hearing from, and that the soapbox session will be exciting. Basically - Apply!

The International Law and Human Rights Unit, part of the @livunislsj.bsky.social at the @liverpooluni.bsky.social , warmly invites postgraduate research students to its Annual Postgraduate Conference in International Law and Human Rights (21-22 July 2025). www.liverpool.ac.uk/law/research...