Joanna Bell & Hayley J Hooper: Not in my (Constitutional) Backyard: How Not to Speed Up Planning Challenges ukconstitutionallaw.org/2026/10/08/j...

Joanna Bell & Hayley J Hooper: Not in my (Constitutional) Backyard: How Not to Speed Up Planning Challenges

Important issues of UK constitutional law can arise in the most unusual of places. Some of the most important cases on undergraduate reading lists, for example, concerned disputes about fishing lic…

ukconstitutionallaw.org

Silly from Jo Johnson: Our government added layers of extra regulation and market competition upon Universities at a time when the value of each home student place was declining in real terms, then we killed international recruitment, but we didn't cause the HE crisis: wonkhe.com/blogs/jo-joh...

The effects of not having a budget in place in NI are real and are being felt by publicly funded bodies - like QUB and UU - throughout NI. The Executive parties have to get back to keeping the lights on, or everyone will end up a lot poorer: www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/norther...

The High Court's A5 ruling, with its broad application of JR standards, followed judicial complaints over the assessment of emissions standards by the Dept of Infrastructure. The NICA isn't convinced and insists that judicial review is a supervisory jurisdiction: www.judiciaryni.uk/files/judici...

Great to see @sylviademars.me present her case studies on frontier workers on the island of Ireland after Brexit. Thousands of people are affected by the clashing post-Brexit systems which are still not fully mapped and this work will have huge consequences in every day life:

Okay, I get that Drumcree is kicking off, but deploying an aircraft carrier to Belfast was low on my list of possible policy solutions...

New open-access paper from @clarerice.bsky.social & Megan Campbell drawing together some of the discussions with the general public in NI that we had in the course of the "Performing Identities" project. Really important reflections on a decade of Brexit reality: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Begging, begging, a journalist to ask the natural follow up, whatdaya mean, question...

CJ McKinney@cjmckinney.bsky.social · 2d ago

"How do you exempt locals from immigration checks without racial profiling?" “A human-rights based approach is adopted in relation to every individual stopped". OK then.

What a rascal! Leaning on his personal assistant to fabricate evidence to help him win libel damages. Perjuring himself. Breaking a promise to pay the money to charity. Having his counsel accuse the assistant of fraud over her personal expenses at the perjury trial. Lovely guy. Fit to legislate.

The TL;DR is that the circumstances have to relate specifically to the individual and not to general country conditions. Another way that applicants from Gaza are being screwed.

The Journal@thejournal.ie · 2d ago

Last November, the laws surrounding family reunification were changed. New FOI records show how the Department of Justice also tweaked the rules to make it harder for immigration officials to waive them in exceptional humanitarian circumstances. jrnl.ie/7180556

Pitch me again why there is a public clamour in the UK for an Iron Dome rather than Sure Start centres? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Rise in babies in care proceedings raises fears of unnecessary adoptions, experts tell BBC

With better support, many babies may not have needed to go into care, File on 4 Investigates is told.

bbc.co.uk

Can't overstate how much this critique is misplaced. Bryant is, in Westminster terms, vastly experienced, with an executive career stretching back to ministerial appointments under Gordon Brown. The problem is that doesn't translate into knowing or caring about NI: www.irishnews.com/opinion/noel...

Noel Doran: Why does London keep sending us such inexperienced secretaries of state?

There is little in Chris Bryant’s CV which suggests he was ever qualified to take charge of a major political crisis

irishnews.com

Drumcree is being portrayed, where there is any rights analysis at all, as a straight clash between Art 8 and Art 11. This is problematic, as it doesn't recognise the specific protest rights of the Garvaghy Road residents (as the CAJ and FIDH highlight here): www.fidh.org/en/region/eu...

Going through the Electoral Commission's lesson plans for secondary schools on democracy and I have views. Many UK public bodies would really like to ignore devolution in NI 1921-72, even without that Assembly elections were in '98 and (bonus) this erases pre-Apartheid black voting in South Africa.

'While UK universities face a financial crisis, providers of accommodation are grappling with falling international student numbers, a cost of living squeeze and higher borrowing and build costs, exacerbated by the Iran war, affecting upgrades at older properties.'

‘I didn’t know what to do’: collapse of providers of high-end digs leaves students in shock

Cost of living crisis and drop in international students hits market for purpose-built accommodation

theguardian.com

When will the bad takes from people who intermittently discover NI's governance arrangements stop?? The Public Processions Act was enacted months before the GFA, to address this issue as a preliminary. The GFA wasn't meant to tackle this. Also NI Bill of Rights was never enacted as the GFA intended:

A man builds an IED. He sets it off in a busy public street. Shrapnel flies about hitting cars, homes and a child's bedroom. It's a miracle nobody is injured. And Reform MP Sarah Pochin calls his imprisonment "disproportionate" and "two tier justice."

Always worth listening to Stormont Sources for an informed account of NI politics, but it's very NI that you are more likely to get a discourse on "love your neighbour" than on Art 11 ECHR. Go here for a weekend read on the relevant law around parades: ukconstitutionallaw.org/2026/09/30/r...

Richard Martin: Scenes from the Garvaghy Road, 2026: Protest, Police and Public Law in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland’s so-called marching season is usually petering out by now. This year looks to be different. On Sunday 27 September, after a 28-year wait and a flurry of last-minute legal challeng…

ukconstitutionallaw.org

David McCann@dmcbfs.bsky.social · last wk.

The latest Stormont Sources podcast has just dropped! @timcairns.bsky.social, Michael and myself debate....Drumcree, what it means and the future of devolution www.youtube.com/watch?v=It0i...

Brave of them to start events so early:

Twlldun@twlldun.bsky.social · 5d ago

Honestly guys isn’t this a bit weird? This is a bit weird

Old wound? The Telegraph is really asking us to believe that NI's status in the UK was settled for all time rather than being for the people of Ireland to determine... www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

I am living to see the people of NI prove this assessment wrong. The Drumcree election is coming, but people who are actively whipping up tensions might well find themselves playing to a diminishing base. V few people believed this march would ever be back on the agenda: www.ft.com/content/9297...

Latest blog is on Burnham's promise of 'pragmatism' in the North Sea, why it's a weaselly word that is providing cover for deeply unpragmatic actions, and why the climate movement needs to talk more about the climate crisis. www.businessgreen.com/blog-post/45...

What does true pragmatism look like in an age of climate crisis?

Andy Burnham has promised a 'pragmatic' approach to North Sea drilling, but who gets to decide what that word even means?

businessgreen.com

Drumcree becomes all the excuse Michael McDowell needs to unleash his favourite and most oft-repeated column theme: Northerners are scary. www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

Much as I would love to see a resolution to the last few days of crisis, there must be a lot of details of this Drumcree proposal which are being left out, even if the leaked information is accurate, because as it stands this is a recipe for hundreds of prosecutions: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

None of the reporting on this story takes any notice of the fact that Fleadh was in Belfast in August. This is a small drop (3%) in North American tourists .. could it be accounted for by the fact that many were in Belfast for the major cultural event instead? No, tax cuts are always the answer.

The Irish Times@irishtimes.com · last wk.

Slide in North American tourist numbers ‘highlights need to extend tax cuts’

Once again it needs to be stressed that this is something happening across the board in Irish immigration- changes in practice leading to refusals that would not have occurred in previous years. We are in a very dark time for the rights of people migrating to Ireland and their families.

Dr Mary McAuliffe@drmarymcauliffe.bsky.social · last wk.

Court hears of ‘significant’ and ‘out of blue’ change of practice by Minister for Justice www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/co...

There was a huge risk that the NI public inquiry into Laundries and Institutional Abuse was not going to get off the ground amid the turmoil of recent months - this is important news, and Langdale has vital experience as Counsel to other inquiries: www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/norther...

Appointment of Rachel Langdale KC to lead Truth Recovery Public Inquiry welcomed

Probe will cover mother and baby institutions, Magdalene laundries and workhouses

belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Image manipulation like this only serves to heighten tensions by suggesting more support for forcing this march down Garvaghy Road than actually exists. May such efforts always be this inept...

Splashy ministerial promises that a public inquiry will provide answers for the Finucane family, meet the persistent foot dragging and half-hearted engagement from public bodies that habitually accompany efforts to shine a light on wrongdoing in the UK authorities' involvement in the NI conflict:

Luke Butterly@lukejbutterly.bsky.social · last wk.

The public inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane is being prevented from access to millions of intelligence documents. Government funding for a secure computer system has yet to be agreed, more than two years after the investigation was first announced.

Richard Martin on the clash of interests at issue at Drumcree. For deep understanding, stop reading other analyses and sit down with this. For me, a coda on the "heckler's veto" point is that this works differently (Art 8) if people are on their own street: ukconstitutionallaw.org/2026/09/30/r...