Christopher Huggins

I’ve just returned from the 2017 UACES conference in Krakow, where I presented a paper on the (rather limited) role of local government in the EU referendum campaign. One of the key starting points of the paper was that little concern is given to the local dimension when discussing Brexit. This is no only reflected […]

EU regional policy spending accounts for about a third of the EU’s total budget. It is the EU’s main mechanism for financial redistribution. In addition to supporting jobs, economic growth, sustainable development and so on, one of its key stated aims is to underpin European solidarity. In this way it is a key part of […]

Next week I embark on my new research project examining the impact of Brexit on UK local government. This is obviously quite broad but I’m essentially interested in three things: Why was the local dimension largely overlooked in the EU referendum campaign? What challenges and opportunities do local authorities believe Brexit presents them with? How […]

Conventional wisdom is that opposition parties perform well and gain ground in by-elections while governing parties don’t. In Stoke Central, Labour managed to retain their seat, albeit with a reduced majority. The Conservative’s win in Copeland, however, was nothing short of a disaster for Labour in a constituency they have consistently held since the 1980s. […]

In European studies and political science more broadly qualitative elite interviews are a well established method. For any PhD student (or indeed any researcher) conducting your first qualitative interviews with elites (those in a privileged position over the activity or area of policy in question) can be a daunting prospect. I was equally daunted, although […]