Land Law, Property Ideologies and the British-Irish relationship

English and Irish land law are deeply influenced by the historical context of the British-Irish relationship, yet property scholarship comparing the two jurisdictions is surprisingly rare. The current Brexit negotiations provide a timely reminder of the strategic importance of property and trade relations between the two countries; and of their related-but-different legal cultures. In this article we examine how the property cultures of England and Ireland were shaped by the politics and practices of land tenure, by competing economic and property ideologies, and by the influence of both on national identity and statehood in both jurisdictions. The article reveals the role of local contexts and events in shaping land reform, and demonstrates the fertile potential of the comparative frame to contextualise each jurisdiction’s doctrines and practices. As domestic land law systems are drawn together in the context of emerging EU jurisdiction over areas like mortgage credit, each jurisdiction’s underpinning ideological commitments have important implications for the ease – or not – of attempts to harmonize member state practices. We explain the alignments and divergences between domestic underpinnings of Irish and English law, and reflect on the implications of our findings for contemporary property problems in the context of evolving economic and political relationships between the UK and Ireland

Secret agents: anarchists, Islamists and politically active refugees in London

The literature on the securitization of migration has characterized a growing trend in migration legislation to treat migration as a security issue. This legitimizes increasingly harsh responses to migrants. Recent legislation in the UK has responded to security concerns directly through the immigration system, where discrimination on the basis of national origin remains permissible, rather than the criminal justice system, where it is not. A historical comparison of two refugee communities reveals the extent to which the security response has become ingrained in British policy-making on migration issues. At the end of the nineteenth century Parliament was faced with a very similar set of issues to those faced by government a century later but a strong liberal consensus implemented very different legislation. Migration policy should not be governed by the actions of a tiny minority of real or imagined ‘secret agents’. The only just solution is to deal with the situation through the criminal justice system, rather than as an immigration issue