Category: Analysis

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jane Wright, Commissioning Editor, Arts & Culture, The Conversation

The more I see Benedict Cumberbatch on screen the more I marvel at his talent as an actor. Recently I have watched him in Eric on Netflix, as an unravelling Sesame Street-style puppeteer looking for his abducted son; in old re-runs of smartypants Sherlock Holmes on the BBC; and as a humiliated husband in The Roses with a truly ghastly Olivia Colman.

His latest film, The Thing With Feathers, promises another affecting performance, this time as a bewildered father struggling to look after his two small sons after the sudden death of his wife.

Based on Max Porter’s beautifully written novella Grief Is The Thing With Feathers, Cumberpatch plays Dad, a graphic artist who is unbearably sad, overwhelmed and increasingly untethered. In a film that is part tender human drama and part horror, this grief manifests as a large black crow, menacing but benevolent in its presence as a kind of guardian figure.

Harry Potter actor David Thewlis voices the character of Crow with thick Lancashire-accented sarcasm, at one point berating Dad for listening to “middle-aged, middle-class, Guardian-reading, beard-stroking, farmer’s-market widow music”, which has got to be my favourite line. But gradually Crow’s hardness shifts Dad, leading him through his sadness and apathy to something at least more bearable and liveable. “I won’t leave until you don’t need me any more,” Crow hisses, almost like a threat.

Our reviewer Dan O’Brien says it is easily the most poignant film he has seen this year, praising it for its nuanced handling of the subject. “Rather than something to be vanquished, the film suggests grief must be accommodated, even befriended. It’s a persuasive portrayal of mourning that recognises grief not as a wound to be sealed, but a permanent, unpredictable companion that you learn to live with.” Definitely on my list this spooky weekend.

The Thing With Feathers is in cinemas now

Like many people I am mad for maps. I find them not merely useful but endlessly fascinating – there is always something new to spy on close examination. So writers who include maps and invented places as part of the fabric of their stories intrigue me.

JRR Tolkien springs to mind, of course, but now a new exhibition in London is showcasing the wonderful maps created by the revered sci-fi writer Ursula K Le Guin, who rooted her genre-defying stories in fantasy worlds. Cartographer Mike Duggan finds the exhibition a fascinating insight into Le Guin’s process of other-world building.

The Word for World: Maps of Ursula K Le Guin is showing in the Architectural Association Gallery, London until December 6

Lies, spies and sleazy lawyers

I can honestly say I am never happier than when I am settling down on the sofa with a big bag of Maltesers and the latest episode of Slow Horses on the telly. And season five has not disappointed. Based on the brilliant series of Mick Herron novels, the drama plays out against a sinister and depressing landscape of dodgy politicians, media manipulation, radical terrorism and moral panics. But this is offset by much lighter tone that mines a rich seam of humour running beneath the serious plotlines.

From the sneaky, snooty toffs at the top of MI5 to the bored office bantz at Slough House, all the real-world ghastliness is leavened by the japes, sarcasm and eyerolling that go on.

I just adore the obnoxious Jackson Lamb and his spectacular insults, holey socks and suspect personal hygiene. Gary Oldman is enjoying the role of his life – you can practically smell the reek from the TV. But you also occasionally get the impression that the more Lamb insults, the more he cares. Maybe.

Spycraft expert Robert Dover examines how the series has managed to pull of this tricky combo of tense drama and hilarity, while claiming Lamb as the 21st-century version of John Le Carré’s George Smiley.

Slow Horses is on AppleTV

In John Grisham’s latest novel The Widow, a sleazy lawyer with less than ethical motives finds himself the main suspect after an elderly woman with a secret fortune that he has been “advising” is found murdered. When his shady legal dealings are uncovered, Simon F Latch looks like a man with opportunity and motive. But he’s innocent – so how does Grisham create a dodgy victim character the reader can muster up some sympathy for? Expert in human rights law Sarah Jane Coyle examines this grey area.

The Widow is in bookshops now

Set in Paris, Souleymane’s Story follows an asylum seeker from Guinea as he seeks work as a delivery cyclist. Seen through his perspective, the French capital becomes an unforgiving landscape fraught with danger and hardship as he strives to find work and survive. But Souleymane’s days are constantly taken up with exhausting negotiations with technology, bureaucracy, racism and threats. First-time actor Abou Sangaré won a best actor award at Cannes in 2024 for his raw but restrained performance, making Souleymane’s Story a compelling watch.

Souleymane’s Story is in cinemas now

– ref. Benedict Cumberbatch, John Grisham and Ursula K. Le Guin’s fantasy maps: what to watch, read and see this week – https://theconversation.com/benedict-cumberbatch-john-grisham-and-ursula-k-le-guins-fantasy-maps-what-to-watch-read-and-see-this-week-263743

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Damian Bailey, Professor of Physiology and Biochemistry, University of South Wales

On January 14 2004, the United States announced a new “Vision for Space Exploration”, promising that humans would not only visit space but live there. Two decades later, Nasa’s Artemis programme is preparing to return astronauts to the Moon and, eventually, send humans to Mars.

That mission will last around three years and cover hundreds of millions of kilometres. The crew will face radiation, isolation, weightlessness and confinement, creating stresses unlike any encountered by astronauts before. For physiologists, this is the ultimate frontier: a living laboratory where the human body is pushed to, and sometimes beyond, its biological limits.

Space is brutally unforgiving. It is a vacuum flooded with radiation and violent temperature extremes, where the absence of gravity dismantles the systems that evolved to keep us alive on Earth. Human physiology is tuned to one atmosphere of pressure, one gravity and one fragile ecological niche. Step outside that narrow comfort zone and the body begins to fail.

Yet adversity drives discovery. High-altitude research revealed how blood preserves oxygen at the edge of survival. Deep-sea and polar expeditions showed how humans endure crushing pressure and extreme cold. Spaceflight continues that tradition, redefining our understanding of life’s limits and showing how far biology can bend without breaking.

To understand these limits, physiologists are mapping the “space exposome” – everything in space that stresses the human body, from radiation and weightlessness to disrupted sleep and isolation. Each factor is harmful on its own, but combined they amplify one another, pushing the body to its limits and revealing how it truly works.

Read more:
What happens to the brain in zero gravity?

From this complexity emerges what scientists call the “space integrome”: the complete network of physiological connections that keeps an astronaut alive in the most extreme environment known.

When bones lose minerals, the kidneys respond. When fluid shifts toward the head, it changes pressure in the brain and affects vision, brain structure and function. Immune cells react to stress hormones released by the brain. Every system influences the others in a continuous biological feedback loop.

The body as a biosphere

The spacesuit is the most tangible symbol of this integration. It is a wearable biosphere: a miniature, self-contained environment that keeps the person inside it alive, much as Earth’s atmosphere does for all life. The suit shields the body from the lethal physics of space, protecting against vacuum, radiation and extreme temperatures.

Inside its layered shells of mylar (a reflective plastic that insulates against heat), kevlar (a strong fibre that resists impact) and dacron (a tough polyester that maintains shape and pressure), astronauts live in delicate balance. There is just enough internal pressure to stop their bodily fluids from boiling in a vacuum, yet still enough flexibility to move and work.

Read more:
Modern spacesuits have a compatibility problem. Astronauts’ lives depend on fixing it

Every design choice mirrors a physiological trade-off. At too low pressure, consciousness fades within seconds. At too high pressure, the astronaut becomes trapped in a rigid shell.

Radiation remains spaceflight’s most insidious hazard. Galactic cosmic rays, made up of high-energy protons and heavy ions, slice through cells and fracture DNA in ways that biology on Earth was never built to repair. Exposure to these rays can cause DNA damage and chromosomal rearrangements that raise the risk of cancer.

But research into radiation biomarkers – molecular signals that show how cells respond to radiation exposure – is not only improving astronaut safety, it is also helping transform cancer treatment on Earth. The same biological markers that reveal radiation damage in space are being used to refine radiotherapy, allowing doctors to measure tissue sensitivity, personalise doses and limit damage to healthy cells.

Studies on how cells repair DNA after exposure to cosmic radiation are also informing the development of new drugs that protect patients during cancer treatment.

Microgravity presents another paradox. In orbit, astronauts lose 1–1.5% of their bone mass each month, and muscles weaken despite daily exercise. But this extreme environment also makes space an unparalleled model for accelerated ageing. Studies of bone loss and muscle atrophy in microgravity are helping uncover molecular pathways that could slow degenerative disease and frailty back home.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station spend more than two hours a day performing “countermeasures”: intensive resistance workouts and sessions in lower-body negative pressure chambers, which draw blood back towards the legs to maintain healthy circulation.

They also eat carefully planned diets to stabilise their metabolism. No single strategy is enough, but together these help keep human biology closer to balance in an environment defined by instability.

Digital physiology

Tiny sensors embedded in spacesuits, or even placed under the skin, can now track heart rate, brain activity and chemical changes in the blood in real time. Multi-omic profiling combines information from across biology (genes, proteins and metabolism) to build a complete picture of how the body responds to spaceflight.

This data feeds into digital twins: virtual versions of each astronaut that allow scientists to simulate how their body will react to stressors such as radiation or microgravity.

The astronaut of the future will not simply endure space. They will work with their own biology, using real-time data and predictive algorithms to spot risks before they happen – adjusting their environment, exercise or nutrition to keep their body in balance.

By studying how humans survive without gravity, we are also learning how to live better with it. Space physiology has already helped shape treatments for osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease, and it is improving our understanding of age-related muscle loss.

Research into spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome – a condition in which fluid shifts in microgravity cause pressure to build inside the skull, sometimes leading to vision changes – is helping scientists understand intracranial hypertension on Earth.

Even studies of isolation and resilience in astronauts have advanced research into mental health and stress adaptation, offering insights that proved invaluable during the COVID-19 pandemic, when millions faced confinement and social separation similar to life aboard a spacecraft.

Ultimately, Mars will test our biology more than our technology. Every gram of muscle preserved, every synapse protected, every cell repaired will be a triumph of physiology. Space may dismantle the human body, but it also reveals our body’s astonishing capacity to rebuild.

Damian Bailey is supported by grants from the European Space Agency, SpaceX and Royal Society Wolfson Research Fellowship. He is Editor-in-Chief of Experimental Physiology and outgoing Chair of the Life Sciences Working Group and outgoing member of the Human Spaceflight and Exploration Science Advisory Committee to ESA. He is also a current member of the ESA-HRE-Biology Panel and Space Exploration Advisory Committees to the UK and Swedish National Space Agencies, and consultant to Bexorg, Inc. (Yale, USA) focused on the technological development of novel biomarkers of cerebral bioenergetic function in humans.

Angelique Van Ombergen works as Chief Exploration Scientist for the Directorate of Human and Robotic Exploration at the European Space Agency. She is an Associate Editor of NPJ Microgravity.

– ref. Mission to Mars: how space exploration pushes the human body to its limits – https://theconversation.com/mission-to-mars-how-space-exploration-pushes-the-human-body-to-its-limits-267837

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Joel Gray, Associate Dean, Sheffield Hallam University

There can be no doubt that any conversation about British girlbands of the last 30 years would be dominated by Spice Girls.

In whichever corner of the globe you are, they were the defacto pop force of the late 1990s – and their impact has been long-lasting. From Adele to Beyonce Knowles-Carter, many contemporary world-class artists cite them as an inspiration.

However, new BBC documentary series Girlbands Forever focuses on many other girlbands who have emerged in British pop music from the early ’90s (Eternal) to the present day (Little Mix). It takes a broadly chronological overview, charting their development, releases and eventual splits in almost forensic detail.

As both a girlband fan and researcher, I was, though, disappointed that it offers little discussion of the impact these artists have had on their fans. Also absent from discussion is the link to queer audiences – something many girlband members have made specific reference to themselves.

One celebratory theme that is strong throughout this three-episode series is diversity and sisterhood. Eternal, All Saints, Atomic Kitten, Sugababes and Little Mix were all made up of racially diverse singers. And as each girlband passed the baton to the next generation, both media and society seemed more and more at ease with this concept.

Other topics of discussion include changes in the media (from newspapers to gossip magazines to reality television to social media) and society more broadly (rave culture, “Cool Britannia” and changing governments). This grounds the girlband discussions in a wider context.

Particular attention is paid to Little Mix as the girlband who won TV talent show The X Factor in 2011 – yet no mention is made that Girls Aloud did it nearly ten years earlier, when they won Popstars The Rivals in 2002.

Indeed, the fact Girls Aloud are not mentioned at all in the series is a glaring omission. While Little Mix faced abuse from anonymous social media trolls and the Spice Girls were constantly targeted by ’90s tabloid newspapers, Girls Aloud were the defining girlband of the celebrity gossip magazine era in the mid-2000s. Experts such as author Michael Cragg have written about the band’s impact on pop culture, and fans are likely to be disappointed by their omission.

The absence of a band which produced superstar (and later X Factor judge) Cheryl Cole highlights another area which a future series could go into: the solo career struggles and successes of these girlband members. Cole had two solo no.1 albums, and joins Spice Girl Geri Halliwell as one the most successful British female artists of all time.

The success of girlbands has always nurtured rich careers in the entertainment industries for its individual members. Both Jade Thirlwall and Perrie Edwards of Little Mix had top-five albums in the same month recently. Spice Girl Mel B is an international TV icon, judging talent shows on multiple continents; Atomic Kitten Natasha Hamilton has established her own record label; and Eternal’s Louise Redknapp had a top-10 album in 2025.

Spice Girl Melanie C and the All Saints’ offshoot Appleton (composed of sisters Natalie and Nicole Appleton) have been seen in the studio this year, with projects rumoured for 2026.

There are also plentiful non-music projects to mention. Many girlband members go on to support charities and philanthropic causes. Halliwell recently received an honorary doctorate from my university, Sheffield Hallam, for her work advancing rights for women and children on projects with the United Nations and Royal Commonwealth Society for Literacy. And Mel B has received awards for raising awareness of domestic abuse.

But for every number-one record and charity ambassadorship role, there is a member who may have not had the same luck. All Saints star Melanie Blatt, for example, has taken on a “chef residency” at a London pub which, while no bad thing, feels rather different to filming television shows in LA, or the solo efforts of her Girls Aloud and Spice Girls peers.

In contrast to the documentary’s omissions, I am glad it spotlights the brilliance of Atomic Kitten stalwarts Jenny Frost and Natasha Hamilton, who were quintessential noughties pop stars and gay icons.

In lieu of much Spice Girls and Girls Aloud discussion, their energy and charisma brings a welcome feeling of personal nostalgia – and a reminder of why the world needs fantastic popstars. Their cheeky charm, which first won me over 25 years ago, still makes me smile today.

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Joel Gray does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Girlbands Forever: BBC documentary charts the highs and lows of British girl groups – with one glaring ommission – https://theconversation.com/girlbands-forever-bbc-documentary-charts-the-highs-and-lows-of-british-girl-groups-with-one-glaring-ommission-268677

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alex Heffron, PhD Candidate in Geography, Lancaster University

Sean Matthews, the Reform UK leader of Lincolnshire County Council, has said he’ll “lie down in front of bulldozers” to stop Britain’s largest solar farm being built in the county. He’s taking sides in a new rural culture war that pits green energy against the countryside’s traditional image of food and farming.

Reform’s opposition to renewables isn’t surprising. Fossil fuel interests have provided around 92% of the party’s funding according to research by DeSmog (when contacted by DeSmog, Reform did not comment on that finding). But solar farms have become a way for the party to mask these interests by presenting itself as a defender of farms, fields and “common sense” against what Matthews called the “nonsense” of net zero.

Meanwhile, the protest group Farmers to Action has urged supporters to “keep the land growing, not glowing”. Its leader, Justin Rogers, has called climate change “one of the biggest scams that has ever been told”, and the group now operates in lockstep with the Together Declaration, a rightwing campaign group with an explicit anti-net zero agenda.

Yet a recent protest organised by these groups in Liverpool, at the Labour Party conference, suggests there is limited enthusiasm in the farming community for these culture wars. While most of the speakers were farmers, very few working farmers showed up. (One of us, Tom, who has been to around 15 of these protests, was there in person and estimates about 50 out of around 300 people present were farmers.)

Those mobilising the culture wars are trying to turn localised rural resentments against solar panels into a wedge issue, and in the process win over rural voters to Reform as the party of anti-net zero. If Reform wins the election, it will seek to impede necessary renewable energy projects.

However, this conflicts with the majority of farmer sentiment, which shows they are concerned by climate change. So, while Reform UK is positioning itself as anti-climate, is the party, despite the rhetoric, actually anti-farmer?

‘You can’t eat electricity’

Research by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) found 80% of UK farmers are “concerned about the impact of climate change on their ability to make a living”, while 87% have experienced reduced productivity due to heatwaves, floods or other climate change-induced extreme weather.

For farmers, productivity isn’t just about profit – it’s a central pillar of what sociologists have called the “good farmer” identity. This is the idea that being a successful food producer is central to how many farmers see themselves and their role.

Since the second world war, agricultural innovations have largely been aimed at producing more food, as a way to improve domestic food security.

Now, in essence, they are being asked to shift their identity to embrace energy production along with food production. But planting fields with solar panels clashes with the productivity aspect of what it means to be a good farmer. The truism that “you can’t eat electricity”, as Farmers to Action put it, is trying to speak to this sentiment.

The accusation is that taking land out of production threatens food security. In fact, only around 0.5% of UK farmland needs to be converted to solar to achieve the government’s target figure.

At the same time, as the research by ECIU has found, the very productivity of farming is being threatened by climate change. This presents an apparent tension.

Without urgent climate action, British farms will continue to bear the costs and consequences. Environmentalists and climate activists might wish to take advantage of this tension between what farmers need and what Reform is offering. While Nigel Farage, Richard Tice and co shake their fists at the Sun, farmers suffer in the heat.

Corporate profits or community interest?

Many objections to large solar farms are driven by a sense of fairness. For example, a tenant farming family in Yorkshire is about to lose 110 acres of their best arable land – half their farm – to solar panels, without any compensation. This will have a devastating impact on their business – where they have lived and farmed for many decades.

For the landowner, the switch will probably be very lucrative, with energy companies reportedly offering rents as high as £1,000 per acre per year, on long-term contracts.

In this scenario, the landowner wins and the tenant loses, which goes against the principle of a just transition, the idea that those affected by the shift to net zero should not lose out. This is despite the prime minister, Keir Starmer, making a pre-election pledge that tenant farmers would be protected.

Effective green policy must ensure that green transitions benefit those doing the work or opposition will grow. Perhaps if the profits were recouped by local communities, not far-off corporations and large absentee landowners, nimbyism wouldn’t fester so easily.

There are fairer ways to deploy renewables, via initiatives which involve and benefit local communities. An example of this is Cwm Arian Renewable Energy, near to where one of us, Alex, lives. It has used the income from wind energy to support the local community in various ways, such as offering good employment, putting on community events and teaching land skills.

Read more:
Family farmers say their way of life is an impossible dream when ‘the bread of life is worth less than rusty metal’

Farmers, like the rest of society, are paying the price of high energy costs. Recent research has shown that wind energy alone has reduced British energy costs by at least £104 billion. Making clear that renewable energy developments can help with lowering energy bills could go some way to overcoming opposition.

Ultimately, farmers still want to farm and produce food. At the same time, agriculture must fit into broader green transitions. The challenge is to take on board the voices and concerns of farmers and see them as part of the transition – not treat them as obstacles to it. If not, there are plentiful voices on the right who are eager to offer them an alternative.

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Tom Carter-Brookes receives funding from Leverhulme Trust.

Tom Carter-Brookes is a member of the Green Party.

Alex Heffron does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. ‘You can’t eat electricity’: how rural solar farms became Britain’s latest culture war – https://theconversation.com/you-cant-eat-electricity-how-rural-solar-farms-became-britains-latest-culture-war-268128

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sarah Singer, Professor of Refugee Law, School of Advanced Study, University of London

A convicted sex offender has been deported from Britain to Ethiopia after being accidentally released from prison. Following a national manhunt, home secretary Shabana Mahmood confirmed that Hadush Kebatu – an asylum seeker who came to the UK without authorisation on a small boat – would be returned to his home country.

Kebatu was convicted in September of sexual offences against a woman and 14-year-old girl and sentenced to 12 months imprisonment. Mahmood announced she had “pulled every lever” to ensure his deportation. But shouldn’t it be easy for the government to deport someone who has committed a crime such as this?

Under UK law, the home secretary has a duty to pursue removal of foreign national offenders (FNOs). This includes “automatic” deportation of any foreign nationals who are sentenced to 12 months or more imprisonment. They also have discretion to deport a foreign national (whether or not they have committed an offence) if they believe it “is conducive to the public good”.

But for several reasons, the UK has struggled to do this. In 2006, it was revealed that some 1,013 foreign national prisoners had been released without the Home Office considering deportation. This was a scandal that led to the resignation of then home secretary Charles Clarke.

Currently, the UK deports approximately 5,000 FNOs per year. There are currently 10,700 FNOs held in UK prisons, around 12% of the total prison population.

FNOs are considered for deportation on completion of their sentence or, increasingly (given the pressure on space in prisons), before they have served their full sentence. This may be under early release schemes or prisoner transfer arrangements with their home country.

In practice, deportations are often complicated by procedural issues. Removal can be prevented by lack of travel documents, and the Home Office may have to seek an emergency travel document from an individual’s embassy before they can be removed – a process which can be frustrated if the offender or their embassy refuses to cooperate or are slow in doing so.

Deportation arrangements

To address these issues, the UK now has 110 prisoner transfer agreements with other countries – most recently, Albania and the Philippines. Through these arrangements, offenders can partially serve their sentence in the UK, and then be transferred to serve the remainder of their sentence in their home country.

There are two other schemes under which FNOs may be deported before serving their full sentences: early removal, and facilitated return schemes. Under these schemes, they do not serve the rest of their sentence in their home country.

Recent changes to the early removal scheme mean FNOs have to serve only 30% of their sentence (rather than 50%) before removal. The home secretary has indicated plans to reduce this to 0%, so offenders can be targeted for deportation as soon as they are sentenced.

The facilitated return scheme encourages voluntary removal. It “sweetens the deal” by providing the offender up to £1,500 to help them resettle in their home country, if they agree to withdraw any outstanding appeals or applications to stay in the UK.

There has been some criticism of the fact that Kebatu was given £500 after threatening to disrupt his deportation. Although his was a forced return, not part of voluntary removal, the Home Office argued this is still a smaller payment than would have been required to detain him and put him on a different flight.

In many cases, lack of coordination and administrative errors in the Home Office are the root cause of failed removals. Complications around booking flights, arranging escorts and other practicalities have all been found to prevent deportations.

Human rights concerns

Offenders may also appeal their deportations by arguing that removal would breach their right to private and family life, under article 8 of the European convention on human rights.

This is sometimes misreported as offering FNOs very broad protection against removal. For example, the wrongly reported case of an Albanian who resisted removal on the basis his son disliked foreign chicken nuggets, or Theresa May’s assertion that a foreign offender was able to stay in the UK because he had a pet cat. These attention-grabbing headlines often misrepresent the content of decisions and mischaracterise the role of human rights.

Read more:
How the UK could reform the European convention on human rights

In fact, the UK has a very strict interpretation of article 8, and decision-makers must balance the right against aims such as controlling immigration and public safety.

UK rules state that the public interest in removing foreign offenders will almost always outweigh any article 8 rights, except in the most exceptional cases. This may be, for example, if the person has lived in the UK for almost their whole life and would have real difficulty integrating in the country they would be removed to, or if removal would be “unduly harsh” on their (UK citizen) child or long-term partner. FNOs sentenced to four or more years in prison must show “very compelling circumstances over and above” these exceptions.

Foreign nationals may also argue that their life will be at risk, that they will suffer inhuman or degrading treatment, unlawful detention, or an unfair trial on return to their home country.

In practice, this means the UK government cannot deport someone if there is a high risk they would face irreparable harm including persecution, torture, ill-treatment or other serious human rights violations. In some cases, this has been relied on to prevent deportation where there was a risk of abduction and torture at the hands of police, or to face trial where evidence obtained by torture would be used.

However, this is only applicable where there is real risk of very serious harm and will not apply in all, or even most, cases. British courts have ruled it is possible to return people even to countries in conflict, if there is a safe place in the country they could move to.

The most recent data shows that between 2008 and 2021, 11% of FNO appeals against deportation succeeded on human rights grounds. This is 3%-4% of the approximately 60,000 FNOs removed from the UK during this period.

Despite the exceptional nature of these human rights protections, the challenges they are perceived to pose to a state’s ability to control its borders mean they attract a disproportionate amount of political attention. In May this year, nine European states took the unprecedented step of issuing a letter to the European Court of Human Rights, calling for greater state powers in removing foreign criminals.

The UK justice secretary has followed suit, stating that the UK will pursue reform of the European convention.

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Sarah Singer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why is it so difficult for the UK to deport foreign criminals? – https://theconversation.com/why-is-it-so-difficult-for-the-uk-to-deport-foreign-criminals-268625