New post on refugeehistory.org: were there refugees in 16thC England? Answer: it's complicated - migrants and the state were in the process of negotiating a form of refugee protection, which helps us to complicate notions of Britain's "proud history of welcome": tinyurl.com/bdyevr4d

Great session of @ihr.bsky.social Migration and Mobility Seminar - fantastic paper from Anne Irfan on the displacement-immobility nexus and Palestinian refugees - and some great questions in the Q&A afterwards

New post on refugeehistory.org: were there refugees in 16thC England? Answer: it's complicated - migrants and the state were in the process of negotiating a form of refugee protection, which helps us to complicate notions of Britain's "proud history of welcome": tinyurl.com/bdyevr4d

Quick bump for this - a great opportunity for PGRs and ECRs to share their research on migration and mobility!

Just over a week until the next Migration and Mobility Seminar - we will be hearing (online and in-person - for free!) from Anne Irfan on Structural displacement and enforced immobility: Palestinian refugee history in Gaza since 1948: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Astonished at all the fab work scholars keep producing, despite all pressures & uncertainty. Or because of? Good & bad: trying to save our job & knowing this matters so much that people try to stop us @historyworkshop.org.uk podcast on #ScholarSunday: www.historyworkshop.org.uk/podcast/chan...

It was brilliant to kick off the Migration and Mobility Seminar with great papers from @profpanayi.bsky.social @endeeekay.bsky.social @bengidley.bsky.social @marcloureiro.bsky.social - a lot to think about in terms of how we do migration history, especially in the current moment

Such a privilege to be part of this amazing roundtable, organised by @onslies.bsky.social at @rshc.bsky.social. So pleased that the conversation can be shared more widely (less pleased about my wobbly voice)

On a personal and slightly self-aggrandizing note, will be pleased to introduce this banging lineup for the first time officially as *Dr* Commons. Many thanks to @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social and Phil Withington for examining me with such care, and Anthony Milton for being a superlative supervisor

reminder we’re kicking off tomorrow 5:30- 7:30pm Hybrid/IHR @profpanayi.bsky.social & @kabcommons.bsky.social will open, then I’ll will speak on history & social studies; @marcloureiro.bsky.social on history & law; and Natalya Din-Kariuki on history & literature. www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Call for Papers! @ihrhistorylab.bsky.social x @ihr.bsky.social Migration and Mobility Seminar special edition - we want papers on all types of migration and mobility history from ECRs and PGRs. Abstracts to kabcommons [@] gmail.com by 15th November. Pls spread the word & DM with any questions

Thousands of Londoners have indefinite leave to remain. They have legal rights and are our friends, neighbours and colleagues, contributing hugely to our city. Threatening to deport people living and working here legally is unacceptable.

If you want to know what the UK government's position is on its obligations under the Genocide Convention in relation to its support for Israel, here's what it argued in court this summer.

A High Court Judge ruled that Home Office had no real oversight of their commercial agents who provide asylum-seeker accommodation. They have a tissue-thin layer of staff with no real idea what’s happening, scared that Ministers and the press will realise this.

Suspending family reunion, one of the *only* safe routes into the UK, is barbaric www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

V pleased to have a new article in @huguenotsociety.bsky.social journal: tinyurl.com/e2zb9bfb. (A little🧵)

V pleased to have a new article in @huguenotsociety.bsky.social journal: tinyurl.com/e2zb9bfb. (A little🧵)

NEW: An Oxford report warns that misleading media coverage is shaping public debate on immigration and human rights. The study finds the ECHR is frequently misreported in deportation cases, fueling misconceptions that erode trust in the legal system. 🧵 [1/8]

The first term's programme for the IHR Migration and Mobility Seminar is now live! www.history.ac.uk/news-events/.... We're hybrid, so if you're interested in migration and mobility across space and time - but also in how we can write better histories of mobility - sign up from anywhere!

The current policy excludes many refugees from family reunion, particularly those who arrive as children. One way to 'stop the boats" would be to *open up* family reunion, stopping separated, often orphaned siblings being driven to desperately dangerous and traumatising journeys in search of family

📣🎉 We are pleased to announce 3 new IHR Seminar Series starting in September 2025. • African History • Migration & Mobility History • Planetary History Find out about the new series on the IHR website: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

We have some really exciting plans coming up: a space to think more thoroughly about the intersection between migration studies and history: can migration studies help historians theorise migration history better? Can history help recover regimes of control and exclusion over the long (long) term?

Good morning, I've written a piece about the prime minister. I spoke to several dozen sources, including government insiders, former legal colleagues and campaigners to ask: what happened to Keir Starmer the heroic human rights lawyer? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

(If you're a UK based historian, or just History-curious, and don't know about the IHR, you are missing a treat). Over 50 fortnightly seminars (most also available online) during the academic year, and much more. Visit the Institute and its library if you're in London. And it's free. 2/2

Really pleased and proud to announce a new @ihr.bsky.social seminar - Migration and Mobility History. We want to cover migration across time and space and speak with colleagues across disciplines. If you're interested in attending/presenting, get in touch: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

This is an amazing resource: as the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill makes its way through parliament, with a whole section criminalising offering material support or information to "illegal" migrants, this work has never been more important (and depressing)

Quite unnerving to relive my PhD viva when listening to In Our Time this morning: both of my examiners were guests!

Delighted to be speaking at the Cambridge Political Thought and Intellectual History Grad Conference tomorrow. I'll be looking at early modern (legal) citizenship in England. Can we discern a citizenlike status more clearly if we incorporate the status and experience of migrants? (I think yes)

Beautiful, by Diane Taylor www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

Wow. Getting a PhD really does open doors!

Thesis corrections really bringing home how often I use the word "however"

The Cambridge Graduate Conference in Political Thought and Intellectual History will take place on 24 June 2025 at 9am. To register, please click this link: ptih-graduate-conference.eventbrite.co.uk Visit our website for more details: www.polthought.cam.ac.uk/future-event...

Squeezing the last pips from grad studentship to present on citizenship and migrants in early modern England at the Cambridge Political Thought and Intellectual History conference - registration open for some banging papers (hopefully including mine): www.hist.cam.ac.uk/ptih-graduat...

Dr Commons! (with minor corrections)

New piece: been working on this for the best part of a year. But really it's trying to draw on everything I've seen and thought about since I first started reporting on far right politics in the late 2000s. Online now and in tomorrow's LRB. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Fascinating article by the amazing Samantha Sint Nicolaas and colleagues about migrant crime and discrimination in the courts of early modern Holland: academic.oup.com/jsh/article-...

This Monday! I'll be talking about how migrants seeking protection creatively use paperwork to make moral claims to rights - in Britain today and 16thC England. Does a lack of rights limit the impact of paperwork? And how can we use of paperwork recentre migrants in histories of protection?

If you're interested in migration & mobility in early modern Germany (& the potential & limits of global history) read 'Encountering the global in early modern Germany'! Glad to have reviewed it for Immigrants and Minorities: tinyurl.com/34w5dnjw @philiphahn.bsky.social @duerrbortolotti.bsky.social

Think this holds up fairly well so far... www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Come by for this Raph Sam event on archives - organised by @onslies.bsky.social and featuring an all star cast!

"This is not just a personal tragedy, it is an humanitarian catastrophe that is being repeated day after day." Ahmed Alhashimi www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

I've written a blog about Calvin's Case (1608) being used by (some) lawyers to argue against birthright citizenship for "illegal" immigrants, looking at what the immigration legal system looked like in 17thC England historymatters.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/blog-archive...

Changing the Record. How do those on the margins keep paper trails to protect their existence, then change their situation through it? 19 May, 6pm, WC1E Book here www.ChangingTheRecord.eventbrite.co.uk @sameen-mohsin.bsky.social @kabcommons.bsky.social @mrcwarwick.bsky.social @worsted.bsky.social

Very excited to join this roundtable! I'll be sharing (preliminary) thoughts on the ways refugees used paperwork to make moral claims for protection - today, and in early modern England. What are the possibilities and limits of paperwork for refugees, and how does paper interact with rights?

Let's be clear, if any other group suffered this level of violence on a regular basis it would be a national scandal, questions would be asked in the House, and the Times and Telegraph would fill their opinion columns.

Mohammed, his wife, and two small children returned to the north of Gaza after the ceasefire and are now trapped and at imminent risk. If you can donate to help them, please do (and share the campaign). Don't let Mohammed and his family feel forgotten: chuffed.org/project/help...

With no safe routes available to ppl fleeing danger, irregular journeys to the UK will continue. Our MPs must understand there are realistic, humane alternatives to REGULATE the arrival of asylum seekers. 🙏 Pls email your MP to attend this important event help.care4calais.org/page/168077/...

Six dead and 40 missing in boat disaster off Italian island of Lampedusa www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

A little thread on Calvin's Case (1608) and its (mis)use in justifying attempts to strip birthright citizenship from the children of undocumented migrants in the USA, focusing on "local allegiance" the apparent precondition for citizenship according to Wurman and Barnett

Record number of children died crossing Channel last year, says UN www.theguardian.com/world/2025/f...