Hello everyone and welcome to what is already the third episode of our brand new

UK.S. Itel podcast from the UK and a changing Europe. And I'm absolutely delighted today to be

able to welcome Aileen McCarg, who's a professor of public law and human rights at Durham University

and a particular expert in devolution and the UK's territorial constitution. Aileen, thank you so

much for joining us today. Thanks for inviting me. And without further ado, I'm going to crack on

because of quite a lot I want to get through with you today. I want to start with Brexit.

And I suppose the first question is, have we had long enough now to fully understand and

appreciate the long-term effect that Brexit is having on the UK's territorial constitution?

Well, I think the answer to that is yes and no. We can say with

confidence that Brexit has had more than a temporary effect on the territorial constitution,

both in terms of the powers of the devolved institutions and the creation of a new legal

architecture for the UK internal market. And in relation to the

more general constitutional context of which devolution operates and the rise at a much more

assertive UK level, I think enough time was passed to be able to see that, you know, that

was not just a temporary blip to deal with the abnormal circumstances of Brexit,

but has quite clearly now spilled over into other issues, so as really to create a new normal.

So we're seeing many more disputes between the devolved and UK levels really across the board,

more disputes about legislation affecting devolved

competencies, increased examples of UK ministers taking powers in devolved areas, a lack of consultation

and notification, and of course, the increasingly assertive use of the kind of various powers of supervision that

the UK ministers have over the devolved level. But I think we still can't say for certainty

where all this might end. Of course, the boundaries of the state may remain highly contested,

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