Rosemary Hunter, Chair, Socio-Legal Studies Association

This post will appear in the Winter 2017 issue of the RCSL Newsletter

On 24 June 2016 it is fair to say that the UK socio-legal community was in shock at the result of the previous day’s referendum, in which a narrow majority of those who participated voted to leave the European Union. I had gone home the night before full of confidence and smiling at my fellow citizens on the train, proudly wearing our ‘I’m In’ badges. The next morning the mood in the workshop I was attending had changed dramatically, to one of incomprehension, disbelief, gloom and despair. How could this have happened? What did it mean? And what kind of world would we now find ourselves living in?

Almost six months later, and despite lengthy and detailed analysis in a wide variety of fora, the answers to these questions are not necessarily much clearer. But we can probably say three things about the effects of Brexit on socio-legal scholarship. One is about the attitude of the socio-legal community towards Brexit. The second is about the impact on UK universities. And the third is about the opportunities for socio-legal analysis of the Brexit vote and the process of exiting the European Union.

Colleagues in the RCSL should be assured that the referendum result does not signal a retreat into isolationism by UK socio-legal scholars. Far from it. Come what may, we will continue to collaborate with EU research partners, participate in EU research meetings and focus on EU subjects of socio-legal study. We will continue our involvement with and support for the Onati International Institute for the Sociology of Law, including our contributions to teaching and examining in the Onati Masters programme. And we will continue to participate actively in RCSL working groups. To the fullest extent possible we will continue to welcome EU PhD students to UK universities. Whether or not we cease to be EU citizens, we have no intention of retreating from our many fruitful, socio-legal engagements with the EU.

The future situation for UK higher education institutions, however, remains uncertain. The British government has thus far refused to commit to any assurances that existing EU staff in UK universities will be able to remain in the UK following the UK’s departure from the EU. While it has announced that studentships awarded to EU students for study in UK universities commencing in 2016/17 will be honoured for their intended duration, it has made no statements concerning the situation of prospective EU students applying for studentships from 2017 onwards. And while it has committed to underwrite research projects funded by the EU prior to the UK’s exit, any ongoing access to European research funds for UK researchers will be decided as part of the UK’s exit negotiations, and there has been no commitment by government either to seeking continuing access to these funds, or to maintaining an equivalent level of research funding at national level into the future.

The latter is a matter of particular concern as Horizon 2020 and previous Framework Programmes and the European Research Council have funded a number of significant socio-legal research projects. The possibilities for UK participation in future funded collaborative socio-legal research, and for the level of funding available to outstanding UK socio-legal scholars, are thus in doubt. The withdrawal of funds may limit the research options of at least some UK socio-legal scholars, which would be a matter of great regret.  The House of Commons Education Committee is currently conducting an inquiry into the impact of exiting the European Union on higher education which will report in 2017. The SLSA will be involved in lobbying on this issue through the Academy of Social Sciences and in gathering evidence from members about actual and anticipated impacts.

But while the capacity to engage in research may be hampered by Brexit, the process of exiting the European Union itself is likely to prove a fruitful subject of study by socio-legal scholars. The level and nature of support for Brexit highlighted significant social divides. People aged under 35 overwhelmingly voted to Remain, while a clear majority of those aged over 45 voted to Leave. Remain voters tended to be in paid work, to have university degrees or be in full-time education, to be non-white, and to support liberal/left political parties, while Leave voters tended to be not working, to have completed formal education in secondary school, to be white, working class and to support conservative or right-wing parties. In a post on the SLSA blog, Roger Cotterrell analysed ‘Brexit Through a Community Lens’, applying socio-legal theory to the EU referendum campaign and result. Other scholars have examined the socio-legal hopes and fears underpinning the referendum vote (see, for example, http://criticallegalthinking.com/2016/06/19/brexit-nostalgia-empire/; and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7VhAR_cJs4).

It is also clear that law will be a central player in debates about the process and terms of the UK’s departure from the EU. Litigation concerning the process of triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty has already reached the UK Supreme Court, and along the way has given rise to unprecedented press attention to both the individual judges hearing the case and to the role of the judiciary in general, providing ample material for a socio-legal analysis of the current state of British legality. Coverage of the Supreme Court hearing has also provided a very visible reminder that the senior judiciary in the UK, as well as the senior members of the legal profession appearing in front of them, are overwhelmingly white and male, which in turn has prompted renewed reflection on the process of judicial appointments (see, for example, http://slsablog.co.uk/blog/blog-posts/the-constitutional-significance-of-the-uksc-is-it-time-to-rethink-appointments-to-the-apex-court-again/).

In 1999 Eve Darian-Smith published Bridging Legal Divides: The Channel Tunnel and English Legal Identity in the New Europe. It is not difficult to foresee the Brexit process generating equally incisive and illuminating socio-legal scholarship. I’m sure articles, books and PhD theses are already being planned and written. Although Brexit itself has cast a cloud over the socio-legal community, the possibilities it creates for socio-legal scholarship may well be the silver lining.