An event by the Constitution Society and the Scottish Council on Global Affairs, supported by the Irish Consulate in Edinburgh.
This event by the Constitution Society and the Scottish Council on Global Affairs, supported by the Irish Consulate in Edinburgh will explore what impact Brexit has had on the relationship between the UK and the rest of Europe and discuss how this long and valued relationship may change in the future. The theme is designed to promote broad reflection on the last ten years and to consider potential further developments in the relationships between the UK and the European Union involving expert speakers providing a range of perspectives and personal/professional insights as we approach the 10 year anniversary of the Brexit referendum.
The event will include personal reflections and discussions between:
John Edward (moderator)
John Edward is the first Head of Operations since the launch of the SCGA. John’s most recent role was as the Chief Executive of the Scottish Council of Independent Schools, covering all aspects of school-age education, regulation and participation. Prior to that, John was Head of the European Parliament’s Office in Scotland, covering the European elections of 2004 and 2009. A graduate of St Andrews and Glasgow universities, John worked for 9 years in Brussels firstly in the then-new European Policy Centre, as personal assistant to Max Kohnstamm. He was subsequently EU Policy Manager for Scotland Europa, Brussels. A trustee of the former Scottish European Educational Trust, and former member of the Scottish Parliament’s Commission on Parliamentary Reform, John was also Chief Spokesman for the non-party political Scotland Stronger in Europe campaign for the 2016 EU referendum.
David Cooney
The son of an Irish emigrant, David Cooney was born and raised in London. He spent almost his entire career in the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs. During this time, he was a key member of the Irish government team for the negotiation of the Good Friday Agreement. He subsequently served as Political Director and Secretary General of the Department and as Ireland’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York and as Ambassador to the United Kingdom, the Holy See and Spain.
Nicola McEwan
Professor Nicola McEwen is a Professor of Public Policy and Governance in the College of Social Sciences and Director of the Centre for Public Policy at the University of Glasgow. She was founding Co-Director of the Centre on Constitutional Change, where she remains a Research Fellow. Nicola completed a Senior Research Fellowship with the ESRC UK in a Changing Europe, having previously been Principal Investigator of one of its prestigious Brexit Priority Grants. Her project, entitled A Family of Nations? Brexit, Devolution and the Union, explored intergovernmental relations in UK-EU negotiations, and the implications of Brexit for devolution and the future of the Union. From 2019-2022, Nicola was Research Fellow in a major ESRC-funded project, Between Two Unions: The Constitutional Future of the Islands after Brexit, where she led the research strand charting the evolution of intergovernmental relations.
Linda Colley
Dame Linda Colley is the the Shelby M.C. Davis 1958 Professor of History at Princeton University and an expert on British, imperial and global history since 1700. The first female Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge, she moved to Yale University in 1982. Her books include Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 which won the Wolfson Prize for History which investigated how - and how far - inhabitants of England, Scotland, and Wales came to see themselves as British over the course of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Colley guest-curated an exhibition at the British Library, London, Taking Liberties, on the meanings of constitutional texts, publishing an interpretative essay "Taking Stock of Taking Liberties: A Personal View". In 2014, and in advance of the referendum on Scottish independence, she was invited to deliver fourteen talks on BBC Radio 4 on the formation and fractures of the United Kingdom, and these were published as Acts of Union and Disunion. In 1999, Colley delivered the Prime Minister’s Millennium Lecture at 10 Downing Street. She is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Society of Literature and the Academia Europaea, and a non-resident Permanent Fellow in history at the Swedish Collegium of Advanced Study.