Disgusting (though not surprising) to see Biggar and the Spectator publishing these completely unjustified smears of colleagues at the Uni of Sussex. Sending solidarity @alanlester.bsky.social
An old shelf filled with animal specimens from pre-1945.
In my series “German things you didn’t know survived the war and are still in use by Poles” I want to give you a glimpse of an amazing research day I had some time ago.
Let me take you on the most unexpected journey through artefacts that survived the 1945 border change.
🧵
Nigel Biggar attacking Alan Lester and colleagues through a proxy student ‘whistle blower’ in the national media, with no right of reply. Disgraceful MAGA tactics.
The Spectator published this attack on me & colleagues just as the High Court is considering Sussex’s request for review of the Office for Students fine. It accuses us of ‘repressing’ our students. The magazine ignored my request for to reply. Please disseminate.
alanlester.co.uk/blog/smearin...
This week’s Gist is about how the U.K. Labour Party unknowingly has been blowing itself up by following Morgan McSweeney’s FG electoral instincts.
They don’t know the patterns, but we do.
www.thegist.ie/the-gist-uk-...
I loved his little tiny wings
What do you mean 'four'?
straightjacket in which the US finds itself. If anything, the US example shows the danger of not writing down enough! The US constitution says barely anything about the judiciary!
I don't think I can. But that doesn't mean that the US 'writes things down' more than other states, it just means that the SoP in the US is unusually lopsided. This, combined with the openly partisan nature of the USSCt and the unworkability of the Art V procedure, leads to the constitutional
You're entirely right that the pre-existing political culture can have just as much to do with the analysis, but bear in mind that constitutions are both influenced by and influential on the political cultures of the states they purport to constitute.
In short, the correct British answer shouldn't be 'the US constitution is oppressive, so we shouldn't codify'. It should be 'the US constitution is oppressive, so if we ever were to codify, which is a separate question, the US is an example of what not to do'.
I would also say that any constitution without prohibitions on/protections against gerrymandering, and without a proportionate electoral system, would also be a warning.
and the entirely deranged way in which it is regarded by many within the country as being sacrosanct/God-given. The impossibility of amendment removes the internal 'set aside/remaking' safety valve (leaving the external imposition of a new constitution to one side).
This is v interesting.
I think it's only legitimate to look to the US as a warning if you acknowledge the US constitution's idiosyncracies, most notably the difficulty/impossibility of the Art V amendment procedure;
Excuse me, I see you said 'unamendable by the legislature' not just 'unamendable'. Well, I would make it amendable by the ordinary amendment procedure, whatever that is (legislative supermajority and/or popular vote and/or state/regional vote, whatever). But not amendable by ordinary procedure
Well this is just a very thin, procedural conception of what a constitution is, and it's a conception entirely at odds with how constitutions work in most democracies.
I also wouldn't make anything unamendable, for both theoretical and practical reasons.
here all day talking about the various ways, large and small, in which the 1937 constitution sucks and needs to be changed! The whole point is that the automatic turn to the US as being symbolic of documentary constitutionalism as a whole is misguided.
I think we're getting bogged down a little here, in that I don't think the Irish constitution is 'particularly good' in the sense you indicate. The whole point is that it's just right there, immediately accessible, a better exemplar of how things *generally* work these days than the US. We could be
Also happy to provide a PDF if you don't have institutional access to the above.
Besides, there's a lot more to the saga of the 8th amendment then just the citizens' assembly. I've a whole chapter on it in my book if you'd like to have a read! www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph-de...
The use of citizens assemblies was in that case just the govt covering its arse, and in subsequent cases it was arse-covering and just their general modishness. They're not inherent to the system, entirely politically contingent.
concerns about them in general and in the Irish context in particular, but 'disgraceful' seems a bit strong to me.
The point is a simple one: the electorate chose (wrongly) to insert the 8th amendment in the 80s, and chose (correctly) to repeal it in the 2010s.
2. Repealing the 8th amendment *didn't* 'require' a citizens' assembly. Nothing does. The government of the time simply lacked the courage to proceed without first holding one in order to generate consent/consensus. Now, I'm not an expert on cit assemblies, and I have some pretty serious procedural
1. Hard disagree. The right to control what does and does not happen to one's own body absolutely should be a constitutional matter, and every constitution should have a specific and enforceable right to abortion (which the Irish constitution still doesn't).
I'm afraid I just don't understand what you're getting at here.
I think you've misunderstood what I mean by 'exemplary'. I don't mean 'very good'. I mean 'an exemplar of modern constitutionalism'.
There's nothing about citizens' assemblies in the constitution: these a purely legislative creation, of recent vintage, and not required by the constitution.
This is to say nothing of the constitutions of Canada, Australia, India etc. There's a whole world out there! Time didn't stop in 1789!
to the constitutions of Germany, Austria, and Japan (mposed but still popularly legitimate); the post 1989 wave in central and eastern Europe; and post-apartheid South Africa. All of which owe a vague, general debt to the US experience, but none of which (none!) follow its examples directly.
discourse as being exemplary, when it is plainly not. Our point was that anyone who thinks the US constitution is exemplary of modern constitutionalism needs to do some work to familiarise themselves with the field, and the 1937 constitution would be a decent starting point. This could then proceed
