News and Opinion

Discussions around free movement would form part of Labour’s negotiations with the European Union after Brexit, said Jeremy Corbyn. Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn tells #Marr that continuing free movement after #Brexit will be 'part of our negotiations' with the EUThe 2017 Labour manifesto said free movement would 'end' after Brexithttps://t.co/bMypEgGZrq pic.twitter.com/RF68pw94fG— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) May […]

The Netherlands has won this year’s Eurovision song contest. The United Kingdom came last with just 16 points. The Netherlands’ Duncan Laurence was the bookies’ favourite and won the 2019 contest for his song Arcade with 492 points. At the opposite end of the table was the United Kingdom’s Michael Rice, with just 16 points […]

JAMES BALL explains why the People’s Vote campaign was wrong to back Labour. Sir Vince Cable speaks at the People’s Vote Rally. Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA. – Credit: PA Wire/PA Images Let’s be blunt: readers of this newspaper are unlikely to enjoy next week. While no poll is over until its votes are cast and counted, […]

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL expresses his sympathy with the main party candidates amid the discontent that remains within the current climate of politics. So, from unleadership which has helped create the mess we are in (see “Lacking Leaders”, TNE #141) we have moved into the writing of its next chapter, the uncampaign. It is hard not to […]

Remainers on the left are desperate to vote Labour, writes PATRICK MOULE. If Jeremy Corbyn wants our vote he must show he’s serious about a People’s Vote. The deal is dead. Having served its purpose of providing a pretext for the extension of Article 50, the mirage of negotiation is no longer required. The Conservative […]

ZOE WILLIAMS discusses the consequences of Nigel Farage’s influence on Brexit and how it has affected the political climate. Nigel Farage. Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images – Credit: Getty Images I was informally canvassing my neighbour: not on behalf of a political party, I just wanted to know how he was voting. “The Brexit Party,” he […]

The European elections present an ideal opportunity to make a positive case for remaining in the EU, says BARNABY TOWNS. We must seize it. Vince Cable at the Rich Mix community arts club in Shoreditch, east London, ahead of announcing the Liberal Democrat manifesto for the European elections. Photograph: David Mirzoeff/PA. – Credit: PA Wire/PA […]

The Conservative Party’s EU election campaign has reportedly been launched with only a handful of reporters and candidates present. Theresa May just launched Conservatives EU election campaign (six days to polling day) in a function room at a Bristol football stadium to UK pool camera and PA, with no wide invite to journalists - one […]

Anti-Brexit campaigners Led by Donkeys are putting up a new set of billboards, and this time they’ve decided to use them to ‘release’ Nigel Farage’s party’s manifesto. Farage announced at a campaign event that he would not publish any sort of manifesto until after the EU elections. READ: Nigel Farage REFUSES to publish a Brexit […]

Fifty years ago saw the most controversial Eurovision Song Contest yet held. SOPHIE DEBOICK looks back to an event that began with intrigue and ended in farce. Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco. Photo: Dominique BERRETTY/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images – Credit: Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images Eurovision is rarely without a row, but this year’s contest – […]

The Football Association has said that a political party has ‘misused’ its logo after the English Democrats plastered England’s three lions device on a campaign leaflet. The ‘three lions’ device has appeared on leaflets for the rightwing fringe party the English Democrats. Picture: Archant – Credit: Archant The logo appears on millions of A4 leaflets […]

The talks between the Conservatives and Labour to agree a Brexit deal have ‘gone as far as they can go’, said Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour leader told Theresa May in a letter that ‘we have been unable to bridge important policy gaps between us’. Cross-party talks about the Brexit Withdrawal Bill have been ongoing since […]

MICHAEL WHITE asks if it is now or never for remainers to stop Nigel Farage’s political rise. Who did most corrosive harm to the tone of public debate on our television screens these past few days? Nigel Farage getting fake-furious with the BBC’s mild-mannered Andy Marr? Belgium’s Guy Verhofstadt for thinking it would be a […]

The Liberal Democrats are now ahead of Labour and the Greens have overtaken the Conservatives in the latest EU elections polling. With Labour at 15% and the Lib Dems at 16%, Vince Cable’s party is now the second preferred choice. The Brexit Party far in the lead on 35%, as Brexiteers flock around Farage. The […]

In an exclusive opinion piece for The New European, the Liberal Democrats’ Brexit spokesperson Tom Brake MP argues how our music industry will suffer as a result of leaving the EU. This weekend is the final of Eurovision. The show is generally seen as a bit of a laugh by many but, as we go […]

Internal NHS documents, that the government wants kept under wraps, reveal hospitals’ warnings of a possible inability to deliver services adequately in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The Brexit contingency planning documents of 35 NHS trusts, revealed by Freedom of Information (FoI) requests, show that hospitals are worried about possible staffing shortages, damage to […]

Former prime minister David Cameron will share his views on the EU referendum ‘for the first time’ in his autobiography which will be released later on this year. The autobiography, For The Record, will be available from September 19 – a month before the October 31 deadline the EU has given the government to get […]

Labour’s John McDonnell has said that he and Jeremy Corbyn are Remainers ‘deep’ in their hearts, in a last-ditch attempt to win back Remainers planning to vote in other ways at the European elections. The shadow chancellor told the Wall Street Journal CEO Council conference in London: “Deep in my heart I’m still a Remainer.” […]

What evidence will it take those advocating a no-deal Brexit to change their mind? JOHNNY LUCAS says to understand their mindset we should watch Netflix’s Behind the Curve. Here’s a phrase you don’t hear often these days: I don’t believe my side has a monopoly on truth. I ask myself daily whether campaigning for a […]

Boris Johnson surprised absolutely nobody when he said he will stand as a Tory party leadership candidate today. He was asked at a business event in Manchester if he will stand, and he reportedly said: “of course I’m going to go for it”. This was reported in The Express as an announcement of his plan […]

ANDREW ADONIS talks about the links between Brexit and a George Orwell novel. Author Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen-name, “George Orwell”. – Credit: PA Archive/PA Images Brexit is George Orwell’s greatest triumph since Soviet Russia. Well, apart from Trump, its bedfellow – or fellow traveller. It’s not just the Orwellian language and […]

A soft Brexit would put 14,000 Welsh jobs at risk, and would drain £700million from the Welsh economy, a new report has found. It also found that a hard or no-deal Brexit would risk 25,000 job, and would take £1.25billion from the Welsh economy. The findings were made by accountants Grant Thornton for the Welsh […]

Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer has denied that Labour have considered abstaining on Theresa May’s Brexit bill – telling the House of Commons it will vote it down. Sir Keir warned Labour opposes passing key legislation designed to implement the Withdrawal Agreement if no Brexit deal has been agreed. Sir Keir said that Brexit […]

BONNIE GREER discusses the cultural importance of the birth of royal baby Archie. The arrival of Master Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor comes like that ancient theatrical device known as the deus ex machina. Literally the ‘god from the machine’, a mechanism created by the Ancient Greeks in which a resolution, or change, is reached in a […]

The government has defended the appointment of former Vote Leave chief Gisela Stuart to an influential role in the Foreign Office, following claims Boris Johnson interferred in the recruitment process. The former Labour MP who led the Vote Leave campaign, was supported by a number of senior Tory politicians including former foreign secretary Johnson, has […]

The Brexit Party’s candidate in the Peterborough by-election could only say that he hadn’t ‘gone into the detail’ when he was asked to back up claims that the EU gives us less control in addressing education and child poverty. Speaking on the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme, Mike Greene in full flow claiming that if […]

Who is on Question Time tonight and where do they stand on Brexit? Here’s your guide. Fiona Bruce will be in Elgin, Moray with a panel including MP Bim Afolami, MSP Richard Leonard, MSP John Swinney, MP Christine Jardine and Eilidh Douglas. Moray voted to Remain by 50.1%, swinging it by just 122 votes. Bim […]

Should Remainers be voting tactically next week? And if so, how? MIA Jankowicz reports. Next week’s European elections are throwing up difficult choices for Remain voters. With a range of pro-EU parties standing in each area, their candidates risk cancelling one another out. Voters looking to make clear their support for a second referendum will […]

Thomas Cook has announced a £1.5bn loss for the previous six months and warned that Brexit was hitting family holiday plans. Shares in the holiday firm plunged 16% after pre-tax losses widened from £303 million a year earlier and it warned second half earnings would be hit amid tough trading over the key summer period. […]

Fewer than one in five people think Labour or the Conservative Party have a clear position on Brexit, a new poll has shown. The Brexit Party’s position was the clearest with voters – but still 41% didn’t appear to know their policy clearly. This could be down to a lack of manifesto – which Nigel […]

Labour could abstain when the Withdrawal Agreement Bill comes before the House of Commons next month. A spokesman for Jeremy Corbyn said that the Labour Party would not be able to support the bill when MPs are expected to vote on it at the start of June, but refused to rule out six times the […]

Theresa May has been told by a Brexiteer MP to quit before the European elections in a question during the latest Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons. https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1128626465589776384 Peter Bone stood up in the Commons to read out a letter from his local Conservatives, who he claimed he had been campaigning with at […]