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With Prof Catherine Barnard, Vicky Pryce and Sir Ivan Rogers

Chaired by Prof Tony Travers

October 31 has been set as the new deadline by which the UK will formally cease being a member of the European Union. By this stage, we may have a new Brexit agreement or a “no-deal”. This panel will assess developments to this point and the implications for the UK going forward. The panellists will bring together a range of expertise, covering British politics, knowledge of Whitehall, the economy, and UK-EU law.

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This year’s Maurice Fraser annual lecture will take the form of a conversation between David Miliband and Professor Kevin Featherstone, followed by questions from the audience. The discussion will assess the state of play of the UK’s attempt to find a parliamentary majority for leaving the EU, and put into geopolitical context the choices and the stakes in the negotiations about our future relations with our European neighbours.

David Miliband (@DMiliband) is the President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee. He oversees the agency’s relief and development operations in over 30 countries, its refugee resettlement and assistance programs throughout the United States and the IRC’s advocacy efforts in Washington and other capitals on behalf of the world’s most vulnerable people.

From 2007 to 2010, he served as the youngest Foreign Secretary in the United Kingdom, in three decades. In 2016 David was named one of the World’s Greatest Leaders by Fortune Magazine and in 2018 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

David Miliband is also the author of the upcoming book, Rescue: Refugees and the Political Crisis of Our Time.

Kevin Featherstone is Eleftherios Venizelos Professor in Contemporary Greek Studies and Professor in European Politics. He is the Director of the Hellenic Observatory and Co-Chair of LSEE: Research on South-East Europe within the European Institute.

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At this year’s LEQS Annual Lecture, which marks LEQS’s 10th anniversary, Jonathan Hopkin will discuss his new book, Anti-System Politics, which traces the evolution of this shift and argues that it is a long-term result of abandoning the post-war model of egalitarian capitalism in the 1970s. That shift entailed weakening the democratic process in favor of an opaque, technocratic form of governance that allows voters little opportunity to influence policy.

Recent elections in the advanced western democracies have undermined the basic foundations of political systems that had previously beaten back all challenges-from both the left and the right. The election of Donald Trump to the US Presidency, only months after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, signaled a dramatic shift in the politics of the rich democracies.

Jonathan Hopkin (@jrhopkin) is Associate Professor of Comparative Politics in the Department of Government at LSE.

Miriam Sorace (@MiriamSorace) is an LSE Fellow in EU Politics at LSE’s European Institute.

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Michael Burleigh, incoming Engelsberg Chair at LSE IDEAS, and Michael Cox, Director of LSE IDEAS, will be in conversation regarding Brexit, Britain and the Irish Question.

Few – if any – of those making the case for Brexit gave much thought to the impact that leaving the EU would have on Ireland – North and South. But, as we have discovered, the impact has been massive. Indeed, not only has Brexit further divided two deeply divided communities in Northern Ireland, it has also placed a big question mark beside the future health of the Irish economy, done potential long-term damage to Anglo-Irish relations, and even threatened the all important Good Friday Agreement itself. Some would even go so far as to suggest that a vote that aimed to take the UK out of one Union might over time see the break up of another: the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Following the event, hard copies of the latest LSE IDEAS report, titled: ‘Ireland-UK Relations and Northern Ireland after Brexit will be distributed to attending audience members.

Michael Burleigh has been appointed as the first Engelsberg Chair for 2019-20 at LSE IDEAS. He is a leading historian who focuses primarily on Nazi Germany. He is the author of The Third Reich: a new history, which won the 2001 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction; Moral Combat, Blood and Rage; and Earthly Powers. His most recent book is The Best of Times, the Worst of Times. He has also won a British Film Institute Award for Archival Achievement and a New York Film and Television Festival Award Bronze Medal.

Michael Cox is Director of LSE IDEAS and Emeritus Professor of International Relations at LSE.

Hashtag for this event: #LSEBrexitIreland

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On this especially timely occasion, the panel will consider the impact of the upcoming European elections on the EU as a negotiating actor of Brexit and the future relationship with the UK. Will the balance of power change in the EU institutions? Is this the next stop for the populist wave, after Brexit?

Matthew Goodwin (@GoodwinMJ) is Professor of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent.

Sara Hagemann (@sarahagemann) is Associate Professor in European Politics, European Institute, LSE.

Sara Hobolt (@sarahobolt) is Sutherland Chair in European Institutions and Professor in the Department of Government, LSE.

Tony Travers is Associate Dean of the School of Public Policy and Professor in Practice, Department of Government, LSE.

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Although the outcomes of the Brexit are still uncertain, it is likely that the whole process will pose several challenges to the UK higher education sector. This event will gather academics, practitioners and stakeholders, who will discuss the potential impacts on higher education policies, academic institutions, and the future of research and innovation stemming from the UK’s departure from the European Union.

Julia Black FBA is Strategic Director for Innovation at the London School of Economics and Political Science.  She was previously the Pro Director for Research (2014-2019) and from 2016-17 also served as LSE’s Interim Director.  She is currently leading on the implementation of the LSE’s 2030 Strategy, on LSE’s entrepreneurship and commercialisation activities, and led the development of the LSE’s PhD Academy and the new School of Public Policy.

Edward Byrne AC (@KingsCollegeLon) is President & Principal of King’s College London. Professor Byrne was a founding director of the Melbourne Neuromuscular Research Unit and the Centre for Neuroscience in 1993. His major research contributions have been in the field of mitochondrial medicine and neuromuscular disorders. Professor Byrne was previously appointed the Vice Provost (Health) at University College London (UCL). He held that position until becoming the eighth University President and Vice-Chancellor at Monash University in 2009. He also received Australia’s highest honour, Companion of the Order of Australia, in 2014.

Nick Hillman (@nickhillman) has been the Director of HEPI since 2014. He worked for the Rt Hon David Willetts MP (now Lord Willetts), the Minister for Universities and Science, from 2007 until the end of 2013, as Chief of Staff and then Special Adviser in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Previously, he was a History teacher and worked at the Association of British Insurers. At the 2010 general election, he was the runner-up in Cambridge.

Marina Cino Pagliarello is an ESRC Post-Doctoral Fellow in the European Institute where she also earned her Ph.D with a thesis on “Constructing the Europe of Knowledge? The role of ideas in the transformations of European education policy (1975-2010)”.

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Hosted by the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity Programme and the International Inequalities Institute

Was the result of the 2016 EU referendum the last gasp of a view of empire based on nostalgia? And on 29 March 2019, as it officially ceases to become a member of the European Union, will post-Brexit Britain be a nation willing to inhabit the world of the present instead of the past?

Join us on Brexit Night as four eminent scholars turn their attention to often overlooked elements in the story – Britain’s past imperial might, jingoism, mythmaking and racism; deep-set anxieties about change and conflicting visions of the future – and the possibility of an unexpected outcome, namely that its shock to the national system may slow or even reverse the decades-long rise of inequality.

In their new co-authored book Rule Britannia: Brexit and the End of Empire, Danny Dorling and Sally Tomlinson argue that while Brexit will almost certainly require the UK to confront its own “shocking, Dorian Gray-like deteriorated image”, “out of the ashes of Brexit could, should and perhaps will come a chastened, less small-minded, less greedy future. There are good reasons to be hopeful.”

Danny Dorling (@dannydorling) is Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford. He is author of books including Peak Inequality: Britain’s Ticking Time BombThe Equality Effect: Improving Life for Everyone and All That Is Solid: How the Great Housing Disaster Defines Our Times, and What We Can Do About It.

Sally Tomlinson is Emeritus Professor at Goldsmiths University of London and Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford. She is author of books including A Sociology of Special and Inclusive Education: Exploring the Manufacture of Inability and Education and Race from Empire to Brexit.

Gurminder K Bhambra is Professor of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies in the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex. She is author of books including Connected Sociologies: Theory for a Global Age.

Bev Skeggs(@bevskeggs) is Professor of Sociology and Academic Director of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme at the International Inequalities Institute.

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