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Professor Paul Taggart

Nobody can have escaped that the UK's referendum on EU membership is underway.  This is a critical moment for the UK politics and economy but also for the future of the EU. A result in favour of Brexit will sever the UK from the EU but will not remove the UK from Europe and will set the UK on a different trajectory from where we are currently. A remain result will ensue that the UK's on going troubled relationship with European integration will continue. Any thought that the referendum will lance the boil can be quickly dismissed by observing how the recent Scottish referendum has not settled that issue and has played a key role in installing the SNP into Westminster as a new opposition.

What strikes me most about the referendum process is that it reveals how unusual the UK is. No other member state is even close to contemplating exit. For Eurosceptics, the unique nature of the UK is why it fits so poorly into the European project. For me the unusual tenor and tone of our debate owes much to our unusual politics and particularly the dynamics of contemporary Westminster party politics. Even for Europhiles there is also often a sense of the UK's unusual ability to punch above its weight in Brussels and to use the EU to offer European leadership.

SEI is playing a full role in both promoting debate and information relevant to the debate. We have completed a run of three open seminars focused on different aspects of the referendum that we ran in collaboration with the Department of Economics. The first featured MIke Gasiorek and Peter Holmes and examined the economic implications of Brexit. The second seminar saw Alan Winters and James Hampshire address the implications for migration of Brexit while the final seminar had Kai Oppermann and me examining the politics of Brexit and the dynamics of the referendum. All the presentations can be viewed at .

This second seismic event for the SEI is the stepping down of Sue Millns as co-director. Sue has taken up the role of Head of Department for Law and so has had to step down to focus on that. Sue continues to remain engaged with SEI. Sue has been co-direction of SEI since 2011, first with Aleks Szczerbiak and latterly with me. I know I speak for Aleks when I say that she has been the most wonderful person to work with. Sue's commitment to European Studies runs very deep and manifests itself in someone who is unfailingly positive and full of ideas and energy. I am very sorry to lose her as a co-director but I know that she is keen to stay engaged with the institute. To balance the loss of a co-director, we are very pleased to welcome Neil Dooley as new lecturer in Politics and as a member of SEI. Neil has worked on Europeanisation and be a key member of the institute.