News and Opinion

Steve Anglesey takes you through his top four Brexiteers of the week. Thomas Paul Kangley’s election leaflet. Picture: Supplied – Credit: Archant 4. BORIS JOHNSON “I just voted Conservative in the local elections. Make sure you do too,” the ever-truthful Boris tweeted at 8pm last Thursday before swiftly deleting the message when he was reminded […]

Betty Boothroyd tells ALASTAIR CAMPBELL why she has returned to frontline politics to campaign for a People’s Vote. Betty Boothroyd thought her campaign trail days were over. She is, after all, almost 90, and it is close to two decades since she stepped down as Commons speaker and headed to the Lords. But the voice […]

Rachel Johnson writes about being a candidate for Change UK in the European elections. As I write, the bruised and beaten main parties are still licking their wounds and the Liberal Democrats are claiming that ‘three-party politics’ are back. Hold on! Having thrown my modest lot in with the superstars of Remain (to my mind […]

Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp has responded to the country’s political leaders trying to make capital out of Liverpool’s win in the House of Commons. https://twitter.com/thisisanfield/status/1126791063182749697 At Prime Minister’s Questions the leader of the opposition referenced Klopp in his question on Brexit to Theresa May. He said: “In view of the amazing performance of Liverpool last […]

Guy Verhofstadt, has predicted a Remain surge as he goes out canvassing with the Liberal Democrats. He joined Vince Cable in London, saying the party offers an “alternative to nationalism”. Verhofstadt is the leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party (ALDE), the Europe-wide body of Lib Dem parties, and said he […]

MIC WRIGHT says that political campaigners are undermining the democratic process with manipulative, duplicitous online advertising and more needs to be done to introduce transparency. There was great fanfare in October 2018, when Facebook introduced new rules for political advertising running on its platform in the UK. Requiring advertisers to prove their identity and location […]

Tommy Robinson’s pledge to offer his European Parliament salary to grooming victims if he is elected has been rejected and branded a ‘profound insult’ by the charities he was offering to support. More than 40 women and charities have signed a letter saying they would not accept money from the English Defence League founder, who […]

Femi Oluwole has defended his decision to drop out of the Peterborough by-election, after anti-Brexit parties had hoped the campaigner would be the Remain ‘unity’ candidate. The Our Future Our Choice champion was alleged to have pulled out at the eleventh hour amid allegations he came under pressure from senior Labour figures – including supporters […]

BONNIE GREER outlines why Joe Biden is the USA’s best hope to run as president. Former vice president Joe Biden finally entered the race for the Democratic Party nomination for US president 
and immediately became the front runner. This was capped by an almost immediate attack from Donald Trump, which must have made the Biden […]

An audience member pinned down Nigel Farage down on his claims about how easy a no-deal Brexit would be on Question Time. This week’s show was based in Northampton, which voted to leave the EU by 58%, and the audience showed it with applause for Farage’s polemics and repeated interruptions of fellow panellists. When the […]

A man was told to remove a woolly hat with ‘bollocks to Brexit’ on it before he could take his seat on a flight because another passenger reportedly found it offensive. Derek said it was a ‘ritual’ of his to share selfies in his hat when he flew. Picture: Derek Knowles – Credit: Derek Knowles […]

A customs union deal would not ‘break the spell’ that Nigel Farage has cast on British politics, an MP has warned. It comes at the launch of a new report which claims that there would be an £80 billion hit to national income and a £13 billion cut to money for public services, even if […]

A senior peer has warned of attempts to ‘distort’ the EU elections as ‘shadowy’ pro-Brexit organisations outspend all political parties on Facebook. Lord Tyler, the Liberal Democrats’ spokesman on constitutional and political reform, said foreign interference in elections and referendums was an “emergency”. “Shadowy campaign organisations are already spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on […]

A Brexiteer MP has complained that the noise from Brexit protesters outside parliament is distracting MPs and the police, saying ‘it needs to be stopped’. Conservative MP Dr Julian Lewis said in the House of Commons that he was concerned by the “incessant loud noise” at all times of day, which he said causes distraction […]

Jeremy Corbyn used the launch of Labour’s European election campaign to call for voters to stop using ‘Remain’ and ‘Leave’ labels, fearing the debate will be stuck in an ‘endless loop.’ Corbyn said that there needs to be more “understanding” of the issues that led to the Brexit vote, said Labour was the party to […]

MICHAEL WHITE takes a look at the past week’s events as the main parties took a beating at the local elections and Nigel Farage blustered on. Trying to predict the outcome of the Brexit stalemate these past many months, let alone to pick Theresa May’s eventual successor, has been even more futile than trying to […]

ANDREA VENZON on why now, more than ever, it is important to mark Europe Day and all that it stands for. This same day, 69 years ago, the French foreign minister Robert Schuman delivered a speech in which he imagined the creation of a European coal and steel community, to make war between European nations […]

JAMES BALL believes both the Conservatives and Labour are playing for a draw when it comes to Brexit, meaning we all lose out. Once again, the Labour and Conservative front benches are meeting up through the week to discuss a possible Brexit compromise. So far, so much groundhog-Brexit-as-usual. But unlike before, there are murmurings – […]

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable has defended adopting the ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ message for the European elections as the party’s pro-Remain agenda becomes a talking point in the news. The message, which has been used by anti-Brexit campaigners including The New European, has been used to tap into the anger of those that want […]

ANDREW ADONIS explains why the Labour Party would lose out in a coalition with the Conservatives. ‘England does not love coalitions’ is one of the most famous aphorisms of British politics. Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t need to take Benjamin Disraeli’s word for it. He just needs to have a quick word with Nick Clegg when the […]

Ahead of Nigel Farage’s 33rd appearance on Question Time, STEVE ANGLESEY wonders why the Brexit Party leader is still complaining about the BBC. “I must say it’s jolly nice of the BBC to be here today. I’ve been up and down the country attending rallies with thousands of people and the BBC haven’t bothered to […]

There would be an £80 billion hit to national income and a £13 billion cut to money for public services even if we leave the EU with a customs union deal, a report has claimed. The report by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) says that a customs union deal with the […]

Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party has announced its candidate for the forthcoming Peterborough by-election – and it’s a former businessman who has appeared on The Secret Millionaire. Mike Green will stand for Nigel Farage’s new party in its first shot at a seat in Westminster after the leader claimed he was “too busy” to stand for […]

Who is on Question Time tonight and where do they stand on Brexit? Here’s your guide… The BBC’s flagship current affairs programme tonight comes from Northampton, hometown of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. But who on the panel will offer no surprises – and who will be left high and dry? Here’s who’s on the panel and […]

Change UK’s Gavin Esler has taken to task one of the Brexit Party candidates in a fiery television exchange over social media claims, the party’s mysterious donor, and its lack of manifesto. Martin Daubney was left squirming as Esler tried to hold him to account for what he called a “lie” over who the former […]

The Women’s Equality Party has launched its European election campaign, dismissing claims it would split the Remain vote as ‘nonsense on toast’. The party is standing a slate of eight candidates in London and supporting like-minded candidates elsewhere in the country. At an event in Bethnal Green, East London, today it unveiled its manifesto under […]

It shunts back and forth but never gets anywhere: a model train store seems to have found the perfect metaphor for the Brexit debate with its new window display. The Brexit-themed window display at the Great Eastern Model Railways shop. Picture: DENISE BRADLEY – Credit: Copyright: Archant 2019 In the window of Great Eastern Models […]

His musical talent and passion might have been overshadowed by other elements of his reign, but Henry VIII deserves his reputation as a king with an ear for a tune, says SOPHIA DEBOICK Henry VIII is known as a musician monarch, but it is a characterisation based on a song he almost certainly didn’t write. […]

A session in which the beautiful game took centre stage, Ian Blackford made a right royal gaffe and everyone ignored Brexit again. You could imagine identical scenes in both Theresa May’s and Jeremy Corbyn’s PMQs plotting rooms this morning as their respective advisors explained there was a big football match last night and it would […]

Over 130,000 voter registration applications have been handed on the deadline for voting in the EU elections, with over half of them from young voters. The rush was more than four times the daily average for the previous week. More than half the applications – 57% – came from people aged 34 and under, while […]

Staying silent in the face of ‘lies’ of the Brexit referendum is one of the biggest regrets of Jean-Claude Juncker’s European Commission presidency. At a press conference, the outgoing president said the EU “would have been the only ones to destroy the lies which were circulated”. But during the 2016 EU referendum campaigns, he said, […]

Voters at the European elections should ignore the Liberal Democrats and Change UK and back the the Green Party to be ‘tough on Brexit and the causes of Brexit’, the party’s co-leader has declared. After a sensational set of results in last week’s English local elections, when Greens gained 185 council seats, the party is […]