If Wikipedia is correct, the term Brexit first appeared in a blog written by one Peter Wilding in May 2012. Little, I suspect, did Peter know how significant his term would become. Brexit has been hitting the headlines virtually daily since the EU Referendum vote result in June 2016 and the prospect of Britain leaving the EU has prompted much discussion within the sociological community across Europe. Not since 2007 has the European Sociological Association (ESA) held its conference in the UK and it is no coincidence that this large gathering of sociologists (over 3,000) should be here this year. On 22 August sociologists will come together to listen to Brexit-related debate at a joint BSA and ESA semi plenary on Nationalism, Europe and Brexit. The session will be jointly chaired by the presidents of the BSA (Professor Susan Halford) and the ESA (Professor Sue Scott) and the speakers include Michaela Benson, Gurminder K. Bhambra, Max Haller and Vanessa E. Thompson.

We’re proud to be working together with the ESA in these turbulent times and I urge you to come along to the joint event on 22 August – it could be the last time that the BSA works with the ESA as an EU member country: a sobering thought.

Judith Mudd, Chief Executive of the The British Sociological Association