News and Opinion

Brexit may mean “much higher” mobile phone bills for Britons travelling on the continent, a committee of MPs has found. The government is not planning to maintain the EU’s ban on mobile roaming charges for voice, text messages and data following withdrawal, the House of Commons EU Scrutiny Committee said in a report. This means […]

A year on from rock and roll bursting on to the scene, 1956 was the moment youth culture truly took hold. SOPHIA DEBOICK on a pivotal moment. Hot on the heels of rock and roll’s breakthrough year, 1956 was an even more important 12 months in the history of music. While 1955 had seen Bill […]

Boris Johnson’s father Stanley Johnson has told Nigel Farage that it is unlikely we will leave the EU – despite his son spearheading the campaign for a hard Brexit. Johnson said that he believed a fresh referendum was the most likely scenario as a result of Brexit talks, and it would result in the people […]

Heart-throb Douglas Booth proves he is more than just a pretty face. Astonishingly still working after lately celebrating her 93rd birthday, Dame Angela Lansbury attributes the longevity of her career to her plainness in youth. It is was typically self-deprecating remark from this great survivor, but maybe she has a point. She explained that the […]

Phillip Hammond is set to announce plans for a special 50 pence coin to commemorate Brexit in his latest budget. The move is intended to appease Brexiteers who have been campaigning for a stamp, bank holiday or coin to acknowledge Britain’s departure from the European Union. This would in addition to a return of blue […]

Transport secretary Chris Grayling has insisted that flights between the UK and EU will not be grounded after Brexit despite admitting that talks on route access have not begun. The ardent Brexiteer told a gathering of UK airport bosses that the “process is not in our hands”. The single market for aviation, created in the […]

#73: Marcel Cerdan, boxer. July 22, 1916 – October 27, 1949 They compared the scenes to the liberation. At 4am on September 22, 1948, as the eastern horizon began to grow pink with imminent sunrise the streets of Paris suddenly filled with jubilant, cheering crowds. They filed out of nightclubs, bars and cafés and danced […]

Nearly half of the public still believes the message Vote Leave plastered on the side of a bus during the referendum campaign. A new study has found that a majority of voters (42%) believed the ‘we send the EU £350m a week – let’s fund our NHS instead’ message to still be true. Just 36% […]

A recent New European article suggested the sudden downfall of the Iranian regime could create more problems than it solves. Former MEP Struan Stevenson disagrees. It is incredible that some commentators on Iran still believe that ‘quiet, calculated diplomatic pressure on the current regime to change some of its practices…’ may somehow end the brutal […]

In the most unlikely place, PATRICK SAWER finds a poignant family link to Italy’s fascist past and a reminder that this dark chapter of the country’s history is not yet closed. There’s a spoon in my kitchen drawer that holds a dark secret and it’s a secret shared by many families in what is now […]

On the anniversary of Britain’s last great international own goal, BARNABY TOWNS finds that the damage this time around is more severe. Some 62 years ago this month, the foreign policy disaster with which Brexit is most often compared ended in ignominious failure. Suez and the current crisis can both be said to be humbling […]

Britain’s small-scale fishermen are, without doubt, among the country’s ‘left behind’. But Brexit will not improve their lot. SIMON WATKINS reports. A grey September morning on Hastings Beach. Boats are being hauled up the steep pebble slope after their early morning fishing trips. A gentle breeze wafts in from the English Channel. The air is […]

Boris Johnson coined the phrase ‘bog roll Brexit’ to explain how the government’s plan was unravelling, but the term might have a new meaning given the latest revelation about Brexit. There are fears that the United Kingdom could run out of toilet roll in the event of Brexit – especially if it crashes out of […]

Leading Brexiteer and Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan has claimed that he has lost friends over his role in Brexit. Hannan has been a long-standing critic of the EU and a leading Leave campaigner. He said: ‘I was a very prominent critic of the EU for 20 years and I’ve seen people who are on the […]

The People’s Vote March for the Future proves resistance is working, argues Mitch Benn. Well, that was a thing. I took part in the People’s Vote March for the Future in London on Saturday and, a quick mental number-crunch confirms, there’s a reasonable statistical probability that you did too. I’ve seen the jaw-dropping aerial shots […]

Brexit will pose no threat to Strictly Come Dancing, Downing Street has been forced to declare amid fears foreign dancers could be barred. Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable – who appeared on a Strictly Christmas special in 2010 – has claimed that immigration restrictions could deprive the show of talented foreign professional dancers. Sir […]

Rachel Johnson on the Mail and why Boris won’t be getting a Christmas card for Bob Geldof. Saturday – the Peoples’ Vote march. I mustered in the lobby of the Marriott Park Lane, as I was being filmed en marche by a crew led by Eric Albert, Le Monde’s London correspondent. Interesting data point about […]

Can we really leave a whole new generation of Brits with such a broken future, asks FEMI OLUWOLE of Our Future, Our Choice Now we’ve all heard the doom and gloom predictions about how Brexit would screw the economy. Frankly, there have been so many claimed figures around this issue that it’s hard to keep […]

London mayor Sadiq Khan is to urge EU leaders to extend Article 50 and delay Brexit until a second referendum or a new government is formed. He will tell the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier when they meet in Brussels today that an extension is in the interests of both sides to avert a “political […]

Public displays of policy are a powerful thing, argues James Ball. When a politician makes a big and public declaration on a policy, it becomes far more likely that they’re going to do it. Anyone who remembers the 2010 Liberal Democrat election campaign and manifesto will know this is no hard-and-fast rule – after promising […]

It is time for the Baby Boomers to step aside and allow the young to take control, argues Bonnie Greer. In conversation with a much younger friend recently I started to see more clearly than ever before why those of us of the Baby Boomer generation must step aside and allow the young to go […]

This week’s New European podcast is now available. Richard Porritt, Geri Scott and Jono Read return for another episode of Brexit chat. The team dive headfirst into the listener’s mailbag and answer all your burning questions – who went on a jolly charabanc to Brussels, how is Theresa May hanging on and what exactly will […]

Alastair Campbell believes things are only just getting started. Well it was certainly different to the last time we marched in London, a few months ago. Not simply the numbers, which had swelled by a factor of five or six, so that a friend I was going to see at the end did not get […]

Auditors have shocked absolutely no-one by reporting Northern Ireland is not well prepared for a no-deal Brexit in areas such as trade and customs. The ability to plan is also “severely constrained” amid uncertainty surrounding the Irish border, migration and the repatriation of powers from Brussels, comptroller and auditor general of the Northern Ireland Audit […]

Sir John Major has issued another stinging attack on Brexiteers following the release of a report that found a ‘no deal’ Brexit will cost young people up to £108,000 by 2050 – the equivalent of £3,000 a year. The former prime minister was commenting on a report by Oxford economist Tommy Peto, which has been […]

Gina Miller laments that no one in government will debate Brexit with her, the maverick Telegraph star who wants an inquest into the ‘unholy mess’ of Brexit, and Boris Johnson’s £16,846 jolly to the States. Few, if any people, can grasp the detail of Brexit quite like Gina Miller – and that would appear to […]

Apprentice star Lord Sugar has said Brexiteers such as Boris Johnson and Michael Gove should be locked up for the “lies” they told during the EU referendum. And the business tycoon said there was a “good argument” for voiding the result of the 2016 poll because people had been misled. The independent crossbench peer made […]

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 Barrow-in-Furness’ Forum venue, which just tomorrow night will play host to Suggs from Madness. But who will prove themselves One Step Beyond shifting public opinion on Brexit – and who […]

Jacob Rees-Mogg has laughed off claims from Donald Tusk that Brexiteers are ‘100% responsible’ for the lack of progress in negotiation talks. European Council president Tusk made the suggestion on Twitter after a barbed exchange with Nigel Farage in Salsbourg, in which Farage claimed the threat of a hard border in Ireland was a ‘red […]

Andrew Adonis explains how Europe has gone back in time. Those who say it’s far-fetched to say we are back in the 1930s know little of the 1930s – or they are the very people trying to take us back there. A.J.P. Taylor, a great historian of the causes of the 
First and Second World […]

Brexiteer radio host Nick Ferrari has turned on pro-Brexit supporter Sir James Dyson for choosing Singapore over Britain to build his new electric cars. The LBC radio presenter was in disbelief that Dyson had chosen to take £16 million of taxpayers’ money for the development of a new electric car out of the country for […]

Michael White on the increasingly hopeless manoeuvres from all sides as they realise the finish line is near. I don’t think I’ve joined a demonstration down Whitehall since students, ones who had voted in droves for the Liberal Democrats in June 2010, turned against them in November after Nick Clegg’s ministers endorsed that Coalition decision […]