By Taryana Odayar, Executive Editor.
Up to nine foreign LSE academics specialising in EU affairs, who were working on a Brexit advisory project for the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), have been barred from contributing to further government Brexit work.
The FCO had previously asked the LSE to prepare a series of policy briefs on Brexit, but LSE now says that the team leader of the Brexit project was told by the FCO that only UK passport holders would be able to contribute to talks on national security and foreign trade, due to concerns over sensitive material being exposed.
Assistant Professor at the LSE, Sara Hagemann, who joined the school’s European Institute in 2009 and has published extensively on European affairs, EU policy-making processes and EU treaty matters, is one of the academics who has been asked to cease contributions to the Brexit project. She tweeted on Thursday, that;
Former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, stated, “It is utterly baffling the government is turning down expert, independent advice on Brexit simply because someone is from another country”, adding that, “This is yet more evidence of the Conservatives’ alarming embrace of petty chauvinism over rational policymaking.”
LSE’s Interim Director, Professor Julia Black, issued this message to LSE staff;
