Charlotte O'Brien

Carry on Campaigning? Or Brexit as Not-So-Jolly Gents' Japes, plus Wives and Sisters making dinner. I have just done a rough and ready analysis of the 'talking head' contributions to the BBC's 'Brexit: a Very British Civil War'. A short 🧵about this Blokey Affair: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

JOY! Genuinely one of the best things ever. Went with family group, ages 7-78 and we all came out raving about it. Ages since I've been in such a packed cinema, and I can't remember ever being in one where the whole room laughed and *cheered* at the same moments. Go - not a moment to lose!

New article in Punishment & Society 📢 Anti-torture advocates know the prison's failures, yet rely on it to punish torturers. Drawing on a survey and 18 interviews, I call this 'carceral fatalism' and argue for an abolitionist alternative. Read here: doi.org/10.1177/1462...

OUCH

The interpretation of hope at the end of the Pandora myth is much disputed: but this is a good one. Also, it is my sister’s middle name.

“Hope is the warrior emotion” 🔥🔥🔥

“Hope is the warrior emotion” 🔥🔥🔥

'Thuggery' somehow does not seem quite serious enough to name what we are seeing in the increasing violence of anti-migrant hate-spinning. Thugs steal your lunch-money. These guys want to steal your humanity.

NEW | I’m not surprised, but I am livid. BBC NEWS, ‘DANNY TOMMO’ AND THE DINGHY ATTACK THAT DISAPPEARED While the rest of the media – even the very worst parts – report on Daniel Thomas’ actions, BBC News fails to give its audience the facts. brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/bbc-news-d...

New profile pic in honest concession to the relentless march of time and all it has wrought upon me. Wrinkles and all.

It finally happened! Been offered a dentist appointment at two-thirty.

The number of cases of cervical cancer reported in Scotland among women given the HPV vaccine at 12-13 years of age is now zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. www.bbc.com/news/article...

What happens if a UK government removes benefits from EU citizens in breach of the withdrawal agreement? My analysis of the likely EU response to Reform Party policy, if ever enacted - eulawanalysis.blogspot.com/2026/08/what...

Judicial review, or judicial blessing ceremony? When @lewisgrahamlaw.bsky.social suggested co-authoring a case note on Jwanczuk, in which the UKSC underlines its distaste for human rights based challenges to primary social security legislation, I figuratively bit his hand off.

Many thanks Charlotte ... have shared: www.rightsnet.org.uk/now/post/72296

New case note from me and @cobrien.bsky.social on the Supreme Court's judgment in R (Jwanczuk) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2025] UKSC 42. Commentary is coming in the Law Quarterly Review next year, but is available to read and download on SSRN here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Sweden accounts for 12% of all post Brexit residency refusals across the EU member states, even though UK nationals in Sweden makes up only 1.55% of the total population of WA beneficiaries in EU member states. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

Just had to stop myself making a Scylla and Charybdis reference, dammit. Why must popular culture steal my esoteric references?!

If you're looking for some light summer reading, there's still time to snap up your copy! bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/trade/what-i...

Andy Burnham correctly points out in an interview that small boat crossings are massively down this year compared with last. The comments in the post are filled with people suggesting he is lying about this very clear, data-evidenced fact. It’s almost as though they don’t want it to he true…

Zelenskyy hasn’t just defied odds by surviving the Russian invasion, he’s already onto his 5th British PM!

Thanks so much, Steve!

Much needed.

Massive shout-out to the A-MAZ-ING people who read the proposal and advised me along the way, especially @colinyeo.bsky.social, @drproudman.bsky.social, Zoe Forbes and Rebecca Tomlinson. YOU ROCK! ❤️

I go on quite a lot about Reform’s migration plans but not enough people seem to realise the effect they would have on hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom have made their lives here. It would be Windrush x 20.

By limiting the application of human rights and rolling back modern slavery protections, the Home Secretary’s latest immigration plans will lead to 6,500 more undocumented people every year, creating 'an underclass of precarious workers'. www.workrightscentre.org/publications...

How have the rights of EU nationals in the UK fared 10 years after the Brexit referendum? UK immigration policy after Brexit: the EU settlement scheme, citizens’ rights and the rise of judicialised governance www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... First 50 eprints are free so hurry while stocks last!

A few token places on safe and legal routes for refugees cannot in any way mitigate or atone for what this government has done and is doing on asylum or immigration policy. A thread trying to be clear-eyed about this.

This is absolutely damning.

The EU's asylum pact applies from today - here's a reminder of my blog posts on this legislation from when it was agreed 1/ The new 'qualification regulation' - on the definition of 'refugee' and 'subsidiary protection' - eulawanalysis.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-...

Very illuminating thread on how the Brexit documentary is wall to wall men, virtually no women. bsky.app/profile/cobr...

Excellent thread. We saw something similar with Covid when the decisions were made by men for men.

Brexit. Reform. All this right wing shit. It's men from top to bottom. If we're not viewing all of this through a feminist lens, we're doing it wrong. This thread is utterly enraging.

I was a political reporter during #Brexit. I remember watching Boris Johnson drive that Leave truck out of that trading estate at the start of the campaign. I followed it to see where it went. It parked up around the corner.

A necessary thread.

I kept waiting to hear from a woman in the Brexit doc who wasn’t married or related to one of the male “protagonists”. I spent a lot of time waiting!

Excellent analysis of this ridiculous piece of preening nonsense.

Ffs. Great thread. She has counted so that we don’t have to.

glad someone did this so we didn't have to but dear god