News and Opinion

An EU official has confirmed that the bloc rejected a request from Boris Johnson to allow him to involve German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Emmanuel Macron in Brexit negotiations.  The senior official said the request for a three-way call on Monday was rejected because negotiations were intended to go through the European Commission and not […]

The Daily Mail‘s meal guide to overcoming food shortages caused by Brexit has created a stir on social media. In an article titled “Cheddar instead of Brie, swap avocado for eggs on toast and plan a stay-cation! What No Deal could mean for the UK’s favourite foods, travel, holidays, second homes and the economy“, readers of the pro-Brexit […]

One reader is against the UK rejoing the European Union, despite being in full support of the project. As I read the columns in TNE #222 – and nodded sagely at Donald Macintyre’s analysis and absorbed the various arguments put forward for re-engaging with, if not re-joining, the EU sometime post-January 2021 – I gave […]

Keir Starmer must not be allowed to ‘fence sit’ on the big issue of the day. The leader of the opposition must stand up not only for the 48% who voted Remain but the overwhelming majority of voters and MPs (including most Labour members and voters) who opposed a no-deal or bad deal, the very […]

Twitter users have swiftly corrected a Brexiteer who claimed the EU was made up of unelected bureaucrats during an appearance on BBC Question Time. talkRADIO presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer sparked controversy on Thursday after claiming the EU was an unelected body dictating policy upon Britain. She said: “I voted for Brexit because I want the people in charge of my […]

The culture secretary said the UK would pay a higher price if it negotiates a poor Brexit deal with the EU “in the longer run” than if it reaches no deal at all. Asked by Times Radio about predictions the economic impact of no-deal would be worse than Covid-19, Oliver Dowden said: “It would clearly […]

Boris Johnson has warned there is a “strong possibility” the UK will fail to broker a trade agreement with the EU as he told the nation to prepare for no-deal at the end of the Brexit transition period. The prime minister said the current proposals would keep the nation “kind of locked in the EU’s […]

Pro-Brexit newspaper the Daily Express has been criticised for its front cover claiming that the EU has not understood its demands. In a sorry-sounding front page, the Leave-backing newspaper claims: “All we ever wanted was our freedom!” The headline comes as prime minister Boris Johnson told cabinet ministers to prepare for no-deal Brexit as talks with […]

A minister has said he “doesn’t accept” Tesco’s prediction that Brexit will drive food prices up by five percent. Culture secretary Oliver Dowden said consumers were better of trusting the environment minister than Tesco when it came to food price predictions brought on by Brexit. Dowden joins a list of cabinet ministers who are denying that […]

As many as 60% of Kent businesses are not prepared for a no-deal Brexit, a report suggests, with just three weeks to go until the end of the Brexit transition period. Concerns have been raised that companies already “hanging on by their fingertips” after a year of pandemic disruption may not be ready for the […]

A former Australian prime minister has warned the UK against leaving the European Union on an ‘Australian-style’ Brexit agreement. Malcolm Turnbull warned Boris Johnson to “be careful what you wish for”, warning the results would be “pretty disappointing”. He told BBC Question Time: “It’ll be pretty disappointing, I think you’ll find out. “We obviously are dealing […]

It was supposed to be the year to catch up on your reading. Don’t worry if you didn’t get through too many books. CHARLIE CONNELLY has some more to recommend… Sooo, have you read much this year? Like many people I had great ambitions of tucking in to some seriously weighty volumes once the lockdowns […]

Jack Elton-Walters on the confusion sparked by the Covid-19 tiers. It may not be its most controversial aspect, but the government’s coronavirus tier system has served to highlight existing confusions, grievances and out-dated ideas about which county certain boroughs, towns and cities now fall into. Previous to the most recent, month-long lockdown in England, those in […]

Denis MacShane on the late Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, a man who helped modernise France and Europe, and relished an argument and a rivalry. “Your friend, Tony Blair, who does he think he is. He’s now calling for Albania to be let into Europe?” Valéry Giscard d’Estaing stretched out his long legs in the French embassy in […]

Theatre critic TIM WALKER reviews a new production of Jack and the Beanstalk, which can be viewed at selected cinemas and online Heaven only knows what Peter Duncan’s neighbours made of what they saw going on in his garden in recent months. The former Blue Peter star got it into his head to make a Christmas panto that […]

EU leaders have made a last-minute change of plan to this evening’s dinner raising hopes of a new trade deal between the UK and the bloc. It means that first on the agenda in tonight’s dinner between UK and EU officials is discussions around a post-Brexit trade deal. The news was confirmed by Sky News Europe […]

The government’s Test and Trace service has finally hit its contact tracing target for the first time since May. Tracers were finally able to exceed the 80% target of close contact reached which experts say is needed to make the system effective. The percentage of “close contacts” of people with Covid-19 in England reached 85.7pc for the week ending December […]

Former Tory chancellor Ken Clarke has said that Brexit will put the country back by 50 years and a no-deal scenario will have worse economic effects than Covid-19. Speaking on the World at One on BBC Radio 4, Clarke said that he accepts the UK is leaving the EU and that his comments were not […]

A BBC presenter has been praised for his two-and-a-half minute explainer of Brexit – in a clip that some viewers said demonstrates why it “fundamentally won’t work”. Ros Atkins, who hosts Outside Source, explained how ideological differences between Britain and the EU would make a trade deal between the two sides near impossible to achieve. Atkins posted […]

The prime minister’s audience with the Queen has been postponed this week to allow him to focus on the post-Brexit trade deal talks. Boris Johnson usually telephones the monarch each Wednesday evening to update her on government matters, but there was no record of the audience in the Court Circular. Buckingham Palace said the Queen […]

Michael Gove has been told to “correct the record” after misleading statements made about Brexit. Gove had claimed that key health and education benefits will be saved “for a while” – even if there is no deal – while interviewed by the Today programme. There is currently no guarantee the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) or Erasmus will […]

A Conservative MP has clashed with a BBC presenter after she brought up a comment by the prime minister suggesting that chances a no-deal Brexit were “absolutely zero”. North Hertfordshire MP Bim Afolami accused Jo Coburn, who hosts Politics Live, of getting her facts wrong in relation to Boris Johnson’s remark. Johnson had said during last year’s […]

Dub London: Bassline of a City – celebrates the best of dub music. Wondering what ‘dub’ is? Essentially, it’s a remix of a song with the vocals (and much instrumentation) stripped away while the rhythm is boosted with added reverb and sound effects. In doing so new soundscapes are created. Dub was first developed in […]

A former treasurer of the Conservative Party has taken his seat in the House of Lords. Michael Spencer, who is chairman of the right-leaning think tank the Centre for Policy Studies, was nominated to the unelected house by Boris Johnson. The 65-year-old Oxford graduate was among the intake of new peers to the upper house, […]

Irish politician NEALE RICHMOND on his sadness as the end of the Brexit transition period nears. When the people of the United Kingdom voted narrowly to leave the EU in 2016, it felt for us in Ireland like they had gone and shot themselves in our foot. There is no such thing as a good […]

Jean-Pierre Melville’s recent work oozes sophistication and turns 50, JAMES OLIVER offers a retrospective. There were those who said Jean-Pierre Melville’s films were all style over substance. Astonishingly, they seemed to mean it as criticism. Few directors have ever controlled the presentation of their films so carefully, erasing the extraneous and obsessively refining what remained […]

A radio presenter who supports Britain remaining in the EU has issued Remainers with a stark warning against Brexit “gloating”. James O’Brien said it was “stupid” of Remainers to celebrate something that was bound to hurt them. Speaking about an FT columnist’s tweet advising against gloating, O’Brien said: “There are two things to say about that. Number one: […]

Will Self on life moving online during the pandemic. “It’s absurd that they advertise televisions by emphasising their picture quality, but they’re showing you this improved picture quality on your inferior set.” When my 23-year-old said this as we were sat in front of our own inferior box the other day, I felt, simultaneously, pride – and […]

In recent days Conservative ministers have scrambled to insist that Boris Johnson’s “oven-ready” Brexit deal pledge at the election only related to the Withdrawal Agreement. But one year ago, days before the general election, the then chief secretary to the Treasury claimed there was no need for no-deal Brexit planning because “we have got this […]

DAVID WARD writes with pain pride after his son Alex entered office with a terminal illness. Just before noon on Friday May 3, 2019, my phone rang. It was my son Alex: “I’ve only gone and bloody done it” he told me. He had just been elected as a councillor in Ashford in Kent. Four years […]

Foreign secretary Dominic Raab has dismissed a warning from Tesco chairman John Allan that Brexit could result in food shortages and price rises, saying he is “not concerned” by their claims. The chairman warned that failure to reach a deal with the European Union could see shoppers turning to buying UK-produced items when imported goods jump […]

A political commentator has brilliantly summed up the frustrations Remainers have with Brexit using an age-old analogy. The New Statesman‘s Philip Collins said Brexiteers compared the concerns of Remainers to “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” having completely ignored the moral of the story. In the fable, which dates back to the Middle Ages, a young shepherd boy repeatedly trick nearby villagers into thinking […]