News and Opinion

Former chancellor and fervent Brexiteer Lord Lawson has been accused of hypocrisy after applying for French residency as Britain leaves the EU. The Conservative peer and chairman of the Vote Leave campaign, who lives in Gers, south-west France, told France’s English-language magazine Connexion that he is applying for his carte de séjour, which will guarantee […]

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 Perth Theatre, where local boy Ewan McGregor began his acting career. But who’ll leave us Brassed Off – and which loyalist party hack will seem like an Attack of the […]

For many, the historic abortion vote result struck a very personal chord. Here, Helen Linehan tells her story and vows Northern Ireland must be next. I’d say Terry Deary, writer of Horrible Histories, had a struggle when he came to writing his comedy kids book about Ireland. The Catholic country where thousands of women and […]

Any economic benefits that come from leaving the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) under Brexit must be felt in the communities that depend on the sector, according to a report. The latest publication, part of a project by The UK in a Changing Europe, has called for an assessment of how fishing communities will be affected […]

Guest editor CAROLINE CRIADO PEREZ picks her five feminist wishes for a better Britain 1 Decriminalise abortion Most people think women in Britain have easy access to abortion. This is untrue. Abortion in the UK is still illegal under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act. ‘Every woman, being with child,’ reads Section 58 of […]

STEVE ANGLESEY rounds up the losers and losers (because there are no winners) of another crazy seven days on Planet Brexit 10 NIGEL FARAGE The nicotine-stained man-frog managed to give Fox News a pre-royal wedding tour of Westminster without a) correcting host Ainsley Earhardt when she introduced him as ‘basically royalty… you’re the man responsible […]

Stanley Johnson has said the Brexit referendum should be held again if there is evidence there was Russian interference in the vote. The I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! contestant – and father of foreign secretary Boris Johnson – said he was sceptical that there was not interference. He told ITV’s Good Morning […]

Brexit has been compared by a leading Remain supporter to appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Former Foreign Office minister Lord Malloch-Brown, head of the Best for Britain group, made the comments after billionaire George Soros announced a campaign for a new Brexit referendum is set to be launched. Mr Soros – who is […]

Labour MP Chuka Umunna has called again for a People’s Vote on a final Brexit deal after an influential global body warned of continuing “high uncertainties” over its outcome. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s twice-yearly Economic Outlook report found that economic growth remains “modest” in the UK, compared with other major economies. […]

Food safety standards could be put at risk by Brexit if the UK quits the EU without a deal to keep exchanging information on public health issues, the Local Government Association (LGA) has said. A failure to protect access to shared intelligence in areas such as animal health systems will increase the chance of a […]

Brexit negotiations remain mired in stalemate with Brussels amid EU briefings slamming the government’s confused plans over the customs union. EU frustration over Britain’s failure to come up with a preferred proposal for customs relations bubbled to the surface last week, as one senior official accused the UK of ‘chasing a fantasy’, while chief Brexit […]

Anti-mafia crusader Giovanni Falcone showed exactly how to wage war against organised crime, but, says his former colleague AUBREY JONES, it seems like we need to learn the lessons again. Money is power. People will assume that this statement is so obvious it no longer needs repeating. Yet many law enforcement agencies do not seem […]

Brexit isn’t achieveable and it isn’t going to happen. Professor Juliet Lodge explains why she’s fighting against Britain leaving the EU. Young women campaigning against Brexit. Photograph: Ik Aldama/PA/DPA. – Credit: DPA/PA Images Let’s get one thing straight. This self indulgent pratting about over Brexit will be stopped. But not by MPs kowtowing to party […]

One of Britain’s best Brexit bloggers CHRIS GREY reveals the excuses that leavers are hiding behind, and why they won’t wash During the referendum, Brexiters offered a political message which took a traditional and familiar form: if you vote for us then various (supposedly) good consequences will follow. It is easy to imagine what they […]

Jacob Rees-Mogg’s photograph by Mark Harrison is a study in vanity, says BONNIE GREER, and it reflects the way our world is in 2018. ‘Mogg told me a ‘Gentleman never ever puts his hands in his trouser pockets’. I now always put my hands in my trouser pockets.’ So tweeted photographer Mark Harrison, a few […]

Hard Brexit agitator Jacob Rees-Mogg has demanded Theresa May takes a tougher line with Brussels – but denied he is launching a coup to become prime minister. Rees-Mogg, who leads the anti-EU European Research Group, claimed there was ‘no menace’ in his actions but his continued attacks on May will have Number 10 rattled. If […]

From Theresa May to Dominic Cummings to Arron Banks – readers ask who is really subverting the ‘will of the people’? Theresa May flouts the convention of balance in the Lords by appointing a raft of Tories to the upper chamber. Dominic Cummings, of the lying Vote Leave campaign headed by Boris Johnson and Michael […]

Is it really worth throwing the country into chaos just to save a fiver on a pair of shoes? Brexiteers say they want us out of the customs union to strike new trade deals so we can get cheaper footwear. Only problem is, leaving the customs union will be hugely disruptive and costly and the […]

Brexit may seem like a pain now, says ALASTAIR CAMPBELL, but just wait till the disastrous consequences which will dominate our lives for the forseeable future. There was a time, was there not, when the Brextremists’ case for Brexit was that it would make Britain a much better place to live. We would be better […]

One year into the Mueller inquiry and rattled Trump faces a fight to outrun the investigation, writes PAUL CONNEW. Last month Donald Trump confessed (or boasted?) on Fox News (where else?) that he’d been ‘too busy’ to buy First Lady Melania a birthday present. Well, he certainly wasn’t going to miss marking the first anniversary […]

Here’s a question for the next time you are in conversation with a confirmed Brexiteer. Ask them how being in the EU, has in concrete terms, restricted their lifestyle or made them materially poorer. Not how it has adversely affected some unspecified people somewhere else or people in a survey organised by the Daily Express, […]

Will Britain’s soft fruit industry be squashed as a result of Brexit? WikiTribune’s HARRY RIDGEWELL reports Red berries – succulent, plentiful and locally-grown – are one of the joys of the British summer. But we might have to savour them while we can. Senior figures are predicting the collapse of the UK’s berry industry because […]

Just as Britain edges closer to ditching the EU, new data protection laws from Brussels provide some much-needed safeguards and protections returning power to individuals over the handling of their most sensitive and personal data. If you’ve followed the news in the last couple of months, you will have heard a lot about Cambridge Analytica. […]

This reader would like to issue an apology to the United Kingdom. Dear United Kingdom, Please accept my personal apology for the current creature occupying our highest government office. He is a disaster of major proportions. He is an ignorant, egotistical, cowardly, narcissistic, bloviating, sexual predating, misogynistic, uneducated, congenital lying, criminal miscreant. He has no […]

As Liverpool FC attempt to write another chapter in their storied history in this weekend’s Champions League final, ANTHONY CLAVANE recounts the extraordinarily intimate relationship between Europe and the city itself. Liverpool has a powerful sense of its own cultural identity, one that few other British cities can match; a distinctive sense of style which […]

Labour MEP SEB DANCE on why he agreed to take part in Channel 4’s warts-and-all documentary When I first got the phone call from Christian, I thought the idea was far-fetched. Surely there had been many programmes about the European Parliament? Did people really want to know more about the supposed ‘elite’ in Brussels? Those […]

The American obsession with guns fails to stop dangerous obsessions with fantasies, says MITCH BENN. Something has to change to stop those fantasies becoming reality. I’m about to make what may or may not be a startling admission. See what you think. I had, all things considered, a pretty happy time at school. I guess […]

ANGELA JAMESON explores Italy’s new government and what it might mean for the EU Electing a populist government is a risky thing to do financially. In Italy this week bond markets have sold off heavily as investors brace themselves for being governed by a bizarre and unexpected alliance of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and […]

This week the team investigate the latest madness from the Daily Mail, the rights of Irish citizens and the looming Brexit Bill showdown. Richard Porritt, Steve Anglesey and Geri Scott return for another episode of The New European podcast. This week Geri investigates what will happen to Irish citizens in the UK after Brexit and […]

Feminist campaigner and journalist Caroline Criado-Perez will guest edit The New European as we become The New Feminist for one week only to showcase women’s voices and stories. The takeover edition will replace The New European’s May 31 issue and will feature a line-up of female journalists, authors and thinkers, commissioned by Criado-Perez to take […]

A senior European Union official has brutally branded the UK’s approach to Brexit as a ‘fantasy’. The official insisted Britain must accept the ‘consequences’ of its decision to quit the bloc and abandon the ‘fantasy’ that things would remain the same. The increase in tension emerged after the UK made clear it would seek a […]

The country is agreed, says CHRIS WRIGHT. Hard Brexit is unthinkable Last week, David Miliband warned that Jeremy Corbyn would be the ‘midwife of hard Brexit’ if he does not commit his party to staying in the single market. Meanwhile, both Nick Clegg, the former Liberal Democrat leader, and Nicky Morgan, the former Conservative education […]