Brexit or Bremain?

On on Friday, February 12, NYU's Jean Monnet Center  held a discussion entitled "Brexit or Bremain? Britain’s fraught relationship with the EU."  The featured speaker was former UK cabinet minister and Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, with commentary from network members Dan Kelemen and Peter Lindseth. Network member Thomas Streinz (NYU) has provided us this overview and commentary of what turned out to be very lively exchange.

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Last Friday, the Jean Monnet Center for International and Regional Economic Law & Justice at NYU School of Law hosted a lunch talk with Ed Balls, now a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School, but formerly Cabinet Minister and Shadow Chancellor for the British Labor Party and hence an insider of British politics. The capacity audience in the lounge of 22 Washington Square North witnessed a live performance by a political mastermind as Balls disentangled historic path dependencies, cultural differences, and political rationales to explain the ‘awkward relationship’ between the UK and the EU. Against the backdrop of the ongoing negotiations for a new settlement between the UK and the EU on the basis of which the British electorate will vote either to leave the EU (‘Brexit’) or to stay (‘Bremain’), Balls argued forcefully for the UK to stay in the EU to avoid losing both influence and prosperity. He has made the argument in more detail in an article for the Wall Street Journal. Based on current polling data, he predicted a close referendum with the ‘Bremain’ side keeping the upper hand.

The initial reactions by the two discussants Daniel Keleman and Peter Lindseth sparked an interesting debate.

The Network on SSRN: Erin Delaney on "Judiciary Rising: Constitutional Change in the United Kingdom"

Network member Erin Delaney (Northwestern) has posted a new piece on SSRN, entitled "Judiciary Rising: Constitutional Change in the United Kingdom."  The article is forthcoming from the Northwestern University Law Review.  The abstract is below and the full article may be downloaded here.

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Britain is experiencing a period of dramatic change that challenges centuries-old understandings of British constitutionalism. In the past fifteen years, the British Parliament enacted a quasi-constitutional bill of rights; devolved legislative power to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland; and created a new Supreme Court. British academics debate how each element of this transformation can be best understood: is it consistent with political constitutionalism and historic notions of parliamentary sovereignty, or does it usher in a new regime that places external, rule-of-law-based limits on Parliament? Much of this commentary examines these changes in a piecemeal fashion, failing to account for the systemic factors at play in the British system.

This Article assesses the cumulative force of the many recent constitutional changes, shedding new light on the changing nature of the British constitution. Drawing on the U.S. literature on federalism and judicial power, the Article illuminates the role of human rights and devolution in the growing influence of the U.K. Supreme Court. Whether a rising judiciary will truly challenge British notions of parliamentary sovereignty is as yet unknown, but scholars and politicians should pay close attention to the groundwork being laid.