Se-shauna Wheatle

My view from the last REF is that universities comply too easily with something they really should be resisting. I wasted so much time and energy, damaged my health (both physical and mental) and demotivated myself in lots of ways.

This is amongst the most impactful two minutes of broadcasting I’ve ever seen.

By Emma Murphy, International Editor, ITV News. #Gaza

You know what’s actually nuts about this kind of shit? For millennia, girls have been immersed in cultures that put us down and was quite fucking depressing

IMMERSED

We did not respond by becoming violent monsters

I responded by becoming an egalitarian feminist

bsky.app/profile/josh...

Following last year's riots we interviewed some of those affected by the violence which was launched at migrant and marginalised communities.
A year on, as we continue to see hate and division still thrown at our communities, we are sharing the first podcast here 👇
www.spreaker.com/episode/ep-1...

We, faculty members at Bar-Ilan University, share with the entire nation the sense of pain, loss, and sorrow that have come in the wake of the October 7th massacre and the ensuing war. Like many others in the country, we lost friends and colleagues in the massacre and in the war. Many of us have family members and friends among those who were taken hostage or are still in captivity. Many among have been wounded in body or spirit; others were forced to leave their homes or saw their homes suffer damage. Many of us, and of our family members, have been serving in the IDF since the massacre. The pain and shared fate we experience are profound and indelible. In light of this pain and loss, we cannot stand idly by in the face of actions by our state that violate the fundamental democratic and Jewish values on which the state was founded— the same values which guided the establishment of Bar-Ilan University. We cannot remain silent in the face of: • An abdication of the duty to act humanely • A lack of commitment to doing “what is right and good” —as though morality were a "political" question • A violation of the Jewish value of redeeming captives (pidyon shvuyim) • A violation of the value of the sanctity of life—which is claiming the lives of women, elderly, and children among our people and among our neighbors in Gaza • The use of unbridled force against our enemies, driven by a lust for revenge • Responsibility for destruction and starvation in Gaza • The systematic overlooking of lawbreakers who harm people, animals and plants in Judea and Samaria • The ongoing and cumulative undermining of the foundations of Israeli democracy during and under the cover of war "Turn from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it" (Psalms 34:15)

Faculty in Bar Ilan Univresity, Israel
We cannot remain silent in the face of [...] violation of the value of the sanctity of life—which is claiming the lives of women, elderly,and children among our people and among our neighbors in Gaza [...] Responsibility for destruction and starvation in Gaza

The government’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state alongside France in September is a historic moment and great news. While we all wish that Israel would agree to end the hunger and suffering in Gaza, commit to a long-term sustainable peace including two states, and rule out annexation of the West Bank, there seems little possibility that the far-right Netanyahu government will agree to those terms. The UK will recognise Palestine in September. I have been calling on the government to take this step for months. In our major report published last week, my committee recommended that the UK and France - as co-signatories of the Sykes-Picot Agreement which carved up the Middle East - must recognise the state of Palestine while there is still a state to recognise. We must not underestimate the significance of this move. Recognition is not an end by itself: it must be the first step to a long-term, two-state solution. First, UN-administered aid must flow in straightaway. Next, the government must urgently kickstart the political process. The Prime Minister, alongside our allies in Europe and the Gulf and Arab states, should present President Trump with a plan. Only he can sway Prime Minister Netanyahu. It is our responsibility to take a leadership role in bringing this conflict to an end. This move shows the UK is willing to be part of that effort. 29 July 2025

My statement on the recognition of Palestine ⤵️

Violent or destructive left wing protest is framed as delegitimising the protesters' stated cause.

Violent or destructive right wing protest is framed as emphasing the need for urgent action on the protesters' stated cause.

As always, right wing men are treated as elemental forces without agency.

Anurag Deb and Nicholas Kilford: Conditioning the UK Parliament’s Power to Legislate for a Devolved Part of the UK: Part II – Some Challenges Posed by Northern Ireland Introduction In its judgments in Continuity Bill and Treaty Incorporation, the Supreme Court identified what we describe in the first part of this post as the ‘conditioning limitation’. The purpose…

Anurag Deb and Nicholas Kilford: Conditioning the UK Parliament’s Power to Legislate for a Devolved Part of the UK: Part II – Some Challenges Posed by Northern Ireland
ukconstitutionallaw.org/2025/07/25/a...

Joint statement on Gaza from AFP, AP, BBC News and Reuters

This from Lionel Shriver (today's Times via @sundersays.bsky.social) is unintentionally very revealing on recent radicalisation of "mainstream" right-wing commentators into far-right racism/ethnonationalism.

Makes very explicit the overlap between Times/Telegraph/Spectator and online extremism.

Our conversation over the last couple of days suggests a complete moral breakdown, at a national scale. Instead of sympathising with far-right protests, politicians should be fucking challenging them.

inews.co.uk/opinion/star...

Paolo Sandro: Parliamentary democracy under the veil of secrecy: the Afghan leak super-injunction case as a bonfire of constitutional principles Introduction On Tuesday last week it emerged that a mind-boggling data breach by the UK government – and the momentous policy decisions taken in its wake – had been kept a secret from all but a han…

Paolo Sandro: Parliamentary democracy under the veil of secrecy: the Afghan leak super-injunction case as a bonfire of constitutional principles
ukconstitutionallaw.org/2025/07/23/p...

Racist demonstrations, reportedly organised by Neo-Nazi groups, have been held outside asylum hostels around London. They have turned ugly & violent at times.

First question on #r4today to a local MP: “do you have sympathy with protesters?”

I switched off. Enough.

Rayner: We must tackle profound impact of migration Deputy PM says ministers must accept ‘real concerns people have’ amid fears of another summer of riots

Or, just spitballing here, the government could address the genuine issues, such as housing issues, cost of living crisis, and confront disinformation spread about immigration to help better inform people, rather than pandering to xenophobia and exacerbating hostile rhetoric and scapegoating.

Anurag Deb and Nicholas Kilford: Conditioning the UK Parliament’s power to legislate for a devolved part of the UK: Part I – The Climate Change Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 Introduction The Climate Change Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 (‘CCA’) is, from a constitutional perspective, a fairly unassuming, if far-reaching, exercise of devolved legislative power. It is an exa…

Anurag Deb and Nicholas Kilford: Conditioning the UK Parliament’s power to legislate for a devolved part of the UK: Part I – The Climate Change Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 ukconstitutionallaw.org/2025/07/22/a...

David Erdos: The UK Information Commissioner’s Annual Report 2024/25: Surveying a Systematic Trend Away from Adequate Enforcement The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) Annual Report for 2024/25 released last week sadly provides evidence of a severe and serious weakening of information rights regulation compared to the s…

David Erdos: The UK Information Commissioner’s Annual Report 2024/25: Surveying a Systematic Trend Away from Adequate Enforcement ukconstitutionallaw.org/2025/07/22/d...

Horrific. Absolutely horrific.

An unbearably sad statement from the Editorial Committee (SDJ) of the AFP news agency, please read:

"Without immediate intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die.
AFP has been working with 1 writer, 3 photographers and 6 videographers, all freelance, in the Gaza Strip… /1

Occupied Palestinian Territories: joint statement, 21 July 2025 The UK and 25 international partners gave a joint statement on the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

UK and other partners joint statement on the occupied Palestinian territories www.gov.uk/government/n...

Thomas Horsley: Reforming the UK Internal Market: The UK Government’s Response to the Review of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 On 15th July 2025, the UK Government (UKG) published its response to its review and public consultation on Parts 1 and 2 of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 (UKIMA). The Response confirm…

Thomas Horsley: Reforming the UK Internal Market: The UK Government’s Response to the Review of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 ukconstitutionallaw.org/2025/07/21/t...

As entertaining it is to see current or former Whitehall figures throw unadulterated shit on a wall about ways to get around the Northern Ireland shaped problem to their imagined utopia, the arrogance of each and every attempt is truly vile.

A fascinating piece about the right to trial by jury, including a particularly interesting discussion of the different senses in which a right might be 'constitutional'. The argument that Leveson adopted an unduly narrow view of this seems compelling to me. ukconstitutionallaw.org/2025/07/18/a...

Alex Benn: In Crisis: the ‘Constitutional’ Right to Jury Trial ukconstitutionallaw.org/2025/07/18/a...

At Hackney Town Hall, where the Office of the Windrush Commissioner is launching today

Opinion | I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It. A scholar of genocide comes to a painful conclusion about Israel’s actions in Gaza.

“My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people,” writes Omer Bartov, a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University. “I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one.”

We at @instituteforgovernment.org.uk have coordinated a letter in @thetimes.com today in which numerous individuals and organisations call on the government to withdraw its mistaken rules which are having a serious chilling effect on civil servants speaking in public…

Lewis Graham: Who Wins and Who Loses Before the Administrative Court? Despite the Ministry of Justice releasing some helpful but limited data relating to judicial reviews, it is hard to know who wins, and who loses, before the Administrative Court. In an attempt to f…

Lewis Graham: Who Wins and Who Loses Before the Administrative Court? ukconstitutionallaw.org/2025/07/14/l...

Stop in the Law of the Name! Nominative Lawmaking, Populism and Justice Nominative laws—laws named after particular victims of violence or injustice such as Martyn's Law, Sarah's Law and Awaab's Law—have become increasingly prominent in the UK. In this article, we offer ...

New Publication with @leejarvis.bsky.social and @michaellister.bsky.social outlining the phenomenon that we have dubbed 'nominative laws'. The Article is available Open Access via the link below.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

ICJ issued its first provisional and binding order in January 2024. It said what is only now beginning, tentatively, to be lined out by western commentators. Genocide is plausible and Israel must act to stop it

The shift is welcome but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s 19 months since.

George Peretz:  The Labour Case for the ECHR In a series of posts on this blog, the legal historian Sanjit Nagi has outlined both a history of Labour scepticism about the European Convention of Human Rights (“ECHR”) (and in particular about t…

George Peretz: The Labour Case for the ECHR ukconstitutionallaw.org/2025/07/10/g...