Epic "huge if true" energy.

From yesterday: Home Secretary ordered to allow man to return to UK after telling airline not to fly him and cancelling his eVisa | Sonia Lenegan

This piece is billed as ‘father of girls thinks misogyny lessons are unnecessary’ but right at the end he actually asks the girls he is confidently speaking on behalf of and they…disagree. Amazing. www.thetimes.com/life-style/p...

Some of the takes on the UKSC's Thompson decision on legacy secrecy amount to gaslighting. There's no threat to security personnel inherent in an abstracted gist of events entering the public domain. And there is no clandestine effort to "rewrite" the conflict. These inquests were delayed for years:

Spoiler Alert: It's the most depressing of all rubber stamps!

DFA argued that releasing feedback on plan to label Algeria as “safe” would hurt diplomatic relations. “It’s probably fair to assume that if the DFA said anything positive about Algeria’s human rights record, they wouldn’t be so determined to withhold it". www.dublininquirer.com/dfa-argued-t...

New post that I hope anyone who cares about human rights/the rule of law reads. If the UK Govt can use a 30 year old threat of terrorism to conceal the release of *outline* information about its agents' connection to murder, it really can act with impunity: ukconstitutionallaw.org/2025/12/18/a...

A judgment to fit a dull day. The UK Supreme Court blithely allows the UK Govt free rein to determine the weight of security issues at more than three decades remove from events in Thompson, and pretty much dooms NI never to get more light on the conflict's legacy: supremecourt.uk/uploads/uksc...

Read my @novaramedia.com report on the Peggie affair, and the stumbling block the gender-critical movement appears to have hit, here: novaramedia.com/2025/12/16/a...

I'm not sure what disgusts me more, that the UK Government straight-up unlawfully imprisoned people in hellish conditions in the BIOT, that two administrations have continued to dispute and fight this finding, or how little attention the whole saga has received... www.leighday.co.uk/news/news/20...

The research findings are now being presented by the report’s authors, @anuragdeb.bsky.social (@qubelfastofficial.bsky.social), @sylviademars.me (@newcastleuni.bsky.social), @colinmurray.bsky.social (@newcastleuni.bsky.social) and @aoifemod.bsky.social (@qubelfastofficial.bsky.social).

The @nihrc.bsky.social are today launching a major new report, by @anuragdeb.bsky.social, @sylviademars.me, @aoifemod.bsky.social, Eleni Frantziou and me, on the novel arrangements for remedying breaches of the UK's obligations for rights and equality in NI under Art 2 WF: nihrc.org/assets/uploa...

Gordon Lyons calls for Call-In Procedure to be changed in a sure fire recipe for nothing ever happening in NI's local councils: share.google/kQcAmwNK5qAd... On this, see a new @nilegalq.bsky.social paper from Daniel Holder at the @cajni.bsky.social: doi.org/10.53386/nil...

From the IPT on Friday - lots of NCND around recently: investigatorypowerstribunal.org.uk/wp-content/u...

So much of the commentary on the FWS judgment has been driven by reflexive responses to the outcome, but there are so many gaps and leaps in its reasoning that it will spawn litigation for years to come - @aoifemod.bsky.social and I flag some failings in judge craft: nilq.qub.ac.uk/index.php/ni...

Even though West Belfast still has the worst rates of further & higher education attendance in NI, the rejection of a JR challenge to RAISE funding that deprioritised Belfast shows up the very limited nature of the PSED in NI law (because it requires ECNI action): www.judiciaryni.uk/files/judici...

'announcing something so major at a paid-for conference...might not be the best communication strategy. It is not helped by the publication of a huge number of reports and detailed guidance just as the session ended, rather than the morning before.' 1/3

Judicial Review of the First-tier Tribunal: Overlapping Errors of law and errors of fact administrativecourtblog.wordpress.com/2025/12/12/j...

‘The frequency, intensity and visibility of the violence leave only two possible conclusions: either the Berlin police operate beyond democratic control, or the city’s government wants them to behave like this.’ @harrystopes.bsky.social on German police violence. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/de...

THE SKIBBEREEN EAGLE WANTS ITS HEADLINE BACK. Some (okay, many) op ed writers in Ireland need a bit of a break.

Criminal barristers in Northern Ireland are to fully withdraw from all Crown Court cases early next year in a dispute over legal aid fees.

A story that wouldn't come to light without effective local reporting - the idea that AI takes on Equality Screening in Lisburn just shows how (un)seriously this Council takes its obligations. Doing a job really badly for years is not a basis to punt it to AI: www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/norther...

I've just sent the following email to the editors of The Journal of Comparative Law:

New article out in the @nilegalq.bsky.social in a significant special issue edited by @livunislsj.bsky.social's Katie Johnston. A wake up call for both the NI Bill of Rights debate and to public lawyers across the UK to watch out for developments under Scotland's UNCRC Act: doi.org/10.53386/nil...

'lots of the pushback over the culture aspects (as was) of the REF from within the sector, to my eyes at least, was more over a sense that these elements were threatening to be a bit woolly, and that the shape of what they would entail wasn’t in place anywhere soon enough in the cycle.' Quite.

An academic disliked an Oxford Very Short Introduction (145 pages) in his field so much that he wrote a 200 page book review attacking it. www.pierre-legrand.com/ewExternalFi...

Much ink has been spilt in discussing the reviewability of the Attorney General's discretionary powers in England and Wales. Northern Ireland is missing in that discourse. Here, I discuss why it ought to be seriously considered.

This whole saga has taken on Spycatcher levels of silliness. The BBC is openly reporting Scappaticci's name without any qualification that he is "reported to be" Stakeknife, and yet the UK Govt is still pinning all of its hopes on the courts propping up this charade...

Hard to overstate the importance of next week's UKSC decision in Thompson for conflict legacy in NI. Either the UK Govt will be led, still grumbling, towards greater transparency in this historic security context, or the courts will help prop up a wall of silence: supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2...

Far too much of the Kenova reporting has utterly ignored the recommendations. There seems to be endless capacity in UK media to generate headlines about lawfare and no recognition of the dangers resulting from the UK Govt restricting conflict legacy information release: share.google/Ehn7pxKpsDwR...

The @cajni.bsky.social annual lecture sees PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher excoriate the application and practice of Neither Confirm Nor Deny policy in NI as an "implacable dogma" in cases like Stakeknife which does not recognise the need for "flexible and nuanced" application in Legacy cases.

Northern Ireland continues show off just how broken UK counter-terrorism law has become...

The UUK talk on REF2029 basically says we've spent five years to go back to REF2021 (but with HESA data instead of a census date): Outputs - 55% Impact - 25% Strategy & Env - 20% No additional statements at a UoA level beyond the Strategy & Env statement. It's all gone a bit Dallas Shower scene.

The latest Kenova report details how MI5 prevented Stakeknife investigations, but we continue to see claims of "lawfare" being used against the UK in conflict legacy cases. The manifest failings in many Troubles investigations is what is driving current legal actions: www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cv...

A blog on why myself @ruthhoughton.bsky.social & Cher Weixia Chen decided to put together this Handbook on Global Governance & asking 'Why Bother' elgar.blog/2025/12/05/w...

“When participants used ChatGPT to draft essays, brain scans revealed a 47% drop in neural connectivity across regions associated with memory, language, & critical reasoning. Their brains worked less, but they felt just as engaged—a kind of metacognitive mirage.”🧪

I can't remember a BBC "constitutional" series this weak. The objects are presented as some sort of cipher for deep constitutional traditions, but everything is wrapped up in 15 minutes (on flags, good luck) or banal. Rubber bullets mustn't be "materials of state"... www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

The UK courts regularly struggled to apply EU law concepts during the UK's membership, and here Eleni Frantziou & @anuragdeb.bsky.social try really hard to help them avoid fresh mistakes on the Charter and Direct Effect as the UKSC mulls over the Dillon case: ukconstitutionallaw.org/2025/12/04/e...

The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland has published a summary of the public consultation on the application of the FWS decision in NI law. As they flagged ahead of the consultation, there remains considerable debate over issues arising from the judgment: www.equalityni.org/ECNI/media/E...

A sobering reflection by Prof Anthony Costello on official responses to Covid given the Hallett Report's multiple and sustained criticisms. Somewhere between "Gong culture" & club-ability, this tears into some fairly woeful shortcomings of the "good chaps": www.bylinesupplement.com/p/230000-dea...

New NIAC report on the Labour Govt's legacy of the conflict is framed on many issues as "could do better". Labour have come into office trying to tweak a mess of a law as little as possible. The bulk of the oral evidence unfortunately predated the new Bill: committees.parliament.uk/publications...

"How did you go bankrupt?" "Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly." Wonkhe covering how close a lot of UK Higher Education providers are getting to the "suddenly" phase, and how few answers ministers seem to have: share.google/fklT7uq2ZY1c... share.google/fklT7uq2ZY1c...

Eager for the latest research on Northern Ireland's special post-Brexit rights and equality protections? Come fill your boots at the Europa Hotel Belfast on 16 December: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/research-l...

Exiting the Market is a god awful euphemism for University closures...

If the Palestine Action case does nothing else (and you'd need a lot of faith in the power of rights in security contexts to think it will) it spotlights once again the lamentable mess of Closed Material Procedures that the UK Govt has so far gotten away with: www.theguardian.com/law/2025/nov...

You could set a whole public law exam based around governmental cock ups based on ministers' aversion to Kneecap. But the Canadian Govt announcing a ban on them entering the country "by accident" is next-level bizarre: share.google/uj6ImbuaMKeu...

The UK has gone from "We need to enshrine the right to jury trial in a British Bill of Rights" to "We need to abolish jury trial" in the space of about 3 years. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

*Stares from the part of the UK in which jury trials were ditched in very many serious cases half a century ago*

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Gavin Robinson's push back against the Covid Report is pretty gratuitous. It doesn't take someone to live in NI to point out that the power sharing system facilitates the pursuit of narrow sectional interests and the behaviour of the largest parties showed up the problems of this amid a pandemic: