Dear Member,
I am delighted to announce the details of our next Speaker’s Supper. Notwithstanding this is the Thursday following our Annual General Meeting, we are thrilled to invite Members and guests to attend one of the meatiest subjects we have chosen to examine this year!
Join us on Thursday 9th November for a bracing Scottish supper to be followed by a presentation by Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of Aberdeen, Professor Michael Keating FRSE FBA MAE who will be asking the question: Can the United Kingdom Survive?
Members are guests are invited to the Club for a stiff drink at 6.00pm before taking supper at 6.30pm. Thereafter, we hand over to Professor Keating for his presentation at about 8.00pm!
Michael Keating graduated from the University of Oxford and in 1975 was the first PhD graduate from what is now Glasgow Caledonian University. He has British, Irish and Canadian citizenship and speaks English, French, Spanish and Italian. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; the British Academy; the Academia Europea; and the Academy of Social Sciences. His interests include comparative European politics, territorial politics, nationalism, and Scottish politics.
Michael is Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of Aberdeen and General Secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He has worked at the University of Essex, North Staffordshire Polytechnic, the University of Strathclyde, University of Western Ontario and the European University Institute, Florence as well as teaching in universities in France, Spain and the USA.
From 2013 to 2020, Michael was founding director of the Centre on Constitutional Change in Edinburgh. He is author or editor of some 40 books including The Independence of Scotland (Oxford University Press, 2009); Rescaling the European State (Oxford University Press, 2013); State and Nation in the United Kingdom: The Fragmented Union (Oxford University Press, 2021). Methods and Approaches in the Social Sciences. A Pluralist Perspective, edited with Donatella della Porta (Cambridge University Press, 2008) is a widely adopted text for doctoral researchers.
About the Presentation
Professor Keating writes:
The United Kingdom has historically been seen in two different ways: as a unitary (albeit devolved) state subject to the sovereignty of Westminster; or as a plurinational union in which nationhood and sovereignty are continually contested and negotiated. The growth of nationalism in the smaller nations has brought this back into sharp perspective. The Brexit project was based on the assumption that membership of the European Union was incompatible with Westminster sovereignty. If we take the second definition, however, the UK constitution is a good fit with the EU since both are plurinational unions in which sovereignty is shared, contested and negotiated without ever being definitively resolved. We have recent survey data to suggest that this idea of sovereignty is widely shared in Scotland, even by nationalists and unionists. The greatest threat to the union is currently not the nationalism of the periphery but unionists at the centre.
Before Professor Keating’s presentation, the following supper will be served:
Cock-a-Leekie Soup, Homemade Bannocks
~
Chicken Breast stuffed with Haggis and wrapped in Bacon, Buttered Turnip Purée, Braised Cabbage, Whisky Cream Sauce
~
Rowie Butter Pudding, Homemade Custard
~
Coffee, Tea, Club Tablet
We anticipate a lively discussion, but are sincerely grateful to Professor Keating for sharing his inimitable expertise on such a delicate but important topic.
To reserve a place at this supper, please contact the Club Office on secretary@rnuc.org.uk or events@rnuc.org.uk, or append your name to the sign-up sheet in Reception.