News and opinion

Voting takes place later this week on 'Our Shared Future' Programme for Government - agreed between Ireland's Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party. Mary C Murphy, University College Cork, analyses what this might mean for the Northern Ireland peace process, Brexit and Ireland's relationship with the UK and its devolved nations.

Coree Brown Swan and Daniel Cetrà, Fellows at the Centre on Constitutional Change, reflect on how Unionist voices have made the case for state unity during the Covid19 pandemic. 

Scottish politics is stuck in a constitutional rut in which issues are viewed through a narrow independence/Union prism. James Mitchell, University of Edinburgh argues that we have become obsessed with whether devolved policies are designed to undermine or sustain the union, perhaps we need to refocus on some of the basic policy-making questions and issues.

In a recent article for Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Coree Brown Swan (University of Edinburgh) and Daniel Cetrà (University of Aberdeen) compare unionism and nationalism in the UK and Spain. In this blog they've given us a teaser of what you can expect.

Katy Hayward, Queen's University Belfast, discusses Brexit and the Irish border, and the lessons Scotland can learn from this. From a Scottish Centre on European Relations report 'An Independent Scotland in the EU: Issues for Accession'.

As part of Scottish Centre on European Relations report 'An Independent Scotland in the EU: Issues for Accession', Nicola McEwen, University of Edinburgh, explains the challenges the Scottish government will face 'keeping pace' with EU regulatory standards in devolved policy areas, and how this is likely to impact the likelihood of an independent Scotland rejoining the EU after independence.

David Bell, University of Stirling, for the Scottish Centre on European Relations latest report 'An Independent Scotland in EU: Issues for Accession' discusses what the implications would be for Scotland in creating an EU-rUK border should they rejoin the EU after independence, arguing that this is a completely different debate to 2014, and explaining the close analogies with Brexit and the border with Ireland.

From the Scottish Centre on European Relations report 'An Independent Scotland in the EU: Issues for Accession', Director Kirsty Hughes, provides an overview of EU enlargement over the years, the development of the accession process, and asks, what would the process look like for an independent Scotland?

Boris Johnson recently discussed building a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland as a way to cement the Union, however, Anna Meine, University of Siegen, evaluates how territorial spaces are negotiated and argues that it will require more than a bridge to alleviate the challenges posed by Brexit.