Following my post on the “legal bits” of the Labour manifesto, here’s my analysis of the most important Conservative proposals of particular legal interest. I warn you: this is a long one, and needs sub-headings.

Constitutional law

On the constitution, the Tories […]

On Tuesday the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the Lisbon Treaty is fundamentally compatible with the German Constitution – the Grundgesetz or Basic Law. The judgment is vast and verbose (German/English) but here’s a (still quite […]

It’s hard to find the words for how I feel about the proposed second Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty: cynical, depressed, angry, frustrated, concerned – all those, and more. This suggestion is an absolute scandal, revealing the authoritarian […]

Iain Dale picked up this morning on a surprising move from the Austrian Chancellor Gusenbauer: he’s promised a referendum on any new EU Treaty which “affects Austrian interests”.

This is a bit more complicated than it sounds. […]

You’ll know by now that Stuart Wheeler’s judicial review of the government’s refusal to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty has failed: here’s the judgment. This is hardly a surprise: it was always a hopeless case. The real […]

David Miliband’s statement in the Commons yesterday was quite revealing, and confirms the accuracy of the story leaked to the Sunday Times suggesting that, privately, the government believes Lisbon is dead. Most of the statement and reactions to […]

The two opinion pieces that have most closely reflected my views are those by John Rentoul in the “Sindy“ yesterday and Hugo Brady at Comment is Free. I think John Rentoul is right that

Big public law issues have come thick and fast this week, so today Charon QC and I talk about what happens now to the Lisbon Treaty, after the Irish “No”: what the options are, and what I think

It is No, then. I’m pleased, I must say. It’s not that I’m a Eurospectic: I’m not. Actually I think most of the content of the Treaty is perfectly reasonable. Why I would have voted no, and why I’m […]

If this is right, it’s astonishing news, and Europe will be pitched into crisis again. I can understand how Irish voters came to say No: as Michael Portillo said on telly last night, simply the knowledge that the French, […]