News and Opinion

RICHARD PORRITT with this week’s big stories A Brexit stalemate, no money in the coffers and polls which have a hard leftie as favourite to win the next election – the news is not good for poor Theresa May. And now a raft of old fashioned sex scandals is set to rock her government as […]

The true impact of Brexit is starting to dawn on Britain. MARC BETTS reports on the latest survey that highlights the nation’s burgeoning panic Fears over the future of the NHS have spiked since the Brexit vote. Open Britain and the European Movement asked voters a series of questions about their thoughts on key issues […]

The Government has been thrown into chaos after a double whammy of a Brexit bombshell and the first casualty of the sex list scandal. After being named among more than 30 Tory MPs accused of sexual impropriety Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon quit the cabinet sensationally telling the Prime Minister: ‘I accept that in the […]

Labour is making a fresh attempt to force the Government to hand over to MPs its assessments of the likely impact of Brexit on key industrial sectors. Brexit secretary David Davis this week confirmed 58 studies have been carried out in sectors covering 88% of the UK economy, but has so far resisted intense pressure […]

Of all the hundreds of hours of footage shot of Max Linder during his extraordinary career at the dawn of cinema, the most poignant was filmed in the spring of 1917 and lasts for barely a minute. It’s an informal snippet of Linder and Charlie Chaplin together in the US, where Linder has just arrived […]

Fifty years ago, at the height of his fame, Martin Luther King paid a flying visit to Geordieland. BRIAN WARD explains why, and argues that the incident is still relevant today While controversy about the removal of Confederate memorials in the US rumbles on, in the north-east of England, plans to honour one of the […]

Going trick-or-treating tonight? Download and print our Monsters of Brexit masks and dress as something truly terrifying If you’re out knocking doors for Halloween tonight, why not go as the ultimate trick – Brexit? The New European has created four masks you can download and print, each featuring a Brexit villain. Simply cut them out, […]

Few MPs have banged the drum against Brexit more consistently than David Lammy. He tells EMMA JONES why there is still so much to fight for When I meet David Lammy in his office in Westminster he has just delivered a letter to David Davis, signed by more than 120 politicians, demanding he publish his […]

From Baronial-style to Blade Runner, the genius of Charles Rennie Mackintosh is in his timelessness. But, as CHRIS SULLIVAN explains, the great Scot’s fortunes were not always as enduring The creative genius of Charles Rennie Mackintosh can be difficult to pigeonhole. His daring constructions, such as the Glasgow School of Art, the Scotland Street School […]

It did not take long for the optimism which greeted the fall of the Berlin Wall to be replaced by something gloomier. PAUL KNOTT explains why, to many East Germans, what followed felt like a hostile takeover No-one who witnessed it – even from a distance on TV – will forget the sheer joy of […]

Opera has a long history of shaping national identity – much to the annoyance of some. PATRICK SAWER looks at its impact in Italy and, perhaps more surprisingly, in the UK Arriving in Britain from his native Germany in 1710, George Frideric Handel wasted no time making an impression on what would now be called […]

Britain wants a bespoke Brexit trade deal. But, as former senior international trade adviser JIM FANSHAWE explains, the clock is ticking towards the worst case scenario Back in January, South Africa dealt a blow to Britain’s somewhat naïve intention to just try and adopt existing EU agreements post-Brexit. Rob Davies, South Africa’s trade minister, said […]

Only the really unscrupulous or bankrupt shirk from their responsibilities over pensions, says former pensions minister ROS ALTMANN. Brexit should not excuse such bad behaviour Brexit negotiations are stuck over the issue of our so-called ‘divorce bill’. One of the sticking points relates to past pension promises. David Davis has suggested that demands for paying […]

The ‘morality police’ of Brexit are closing down debate, says YASMIN ALIBHAI-BROWN. We must not let them What? We can’t object to Brexit? Can’t even scream as the nation is propelled headlong into a lightless chasm? The rules have apparently changed. All Brits are expected to fall in line, to commit absolutely to the referendum […]

The playwright, author and critic on Brexit’s false sense of English patriotism There is still a Leave demographic, slowly shrinking, but still resilient. Many ask why this is, even in the face of another possibly fatal intrusion of reality threatening that coup d’état against reason known as Brexit. As anyone really paying attention knows, the […]

Never mind Hollywood, the greatest action movie of all time is a French classic. RICHARD LUCK looks back on a film that was ripped off by Spielberg and remade by William Friedkin The American director William Friedkin was at the peak of his powers in 1974. The double whammy of The French Connection and The […]

The East German authorities hoped Bruce Springsteen might help bolster their ailing regime. Instead, as IAN WALKER explains, he doomed it It was the summer of 1988 and one of the last battles of the Cold War was about to take place in Berlin. Forty three years of useless division, of hostile, cynical realpolitik and […]

Criticism of Harvey Weinstein has shifted to a critique of the sort of liberalism he is said to have espoused, says BARBARA ELLEN. But surely he wears his liberalism like a mask If disgraced Hollywood film producer, Harvey Weinstein, were standing in front of you right now – what would you say to him? Personally, […]

MICHAEL WHITE on a pitied prime minister whose weakness may turn into a negotiating strength Jeremy Corbyn has come a long way at the Commons dispatch box since his first fumbling sessions of Prime Minister’s question time. And when he quoted Liam Fox back at Theresa May after her latest statement on the Brexit negotiations […]

PAUL CONNEW on the US president’s latest imbroglio It was an under siege US president who presided over the scandal which gave the world the over-used suffix, ‘gate’. Now, another under siege one is responsible for its latest, and perhaps most inelegant to date, application… ‘condolencegate’. And Donald Trump’s latest imbroglio might well prove the […]

A Brexit minister today quit citing health reasons, two years after suffering an injury leaping out of a helicopter. Baroness Anelay, who was only appointed minister of state at the Brexit Department in June, said she was “calling time” on her career. The 70-year-old injured her ankle in an accident getting out of a Black […]

The comedian, musician and writer on how American Halloween supplanted the ‘British’ Halloween of old Just one of the many exciting side-benefits of my rapidly advancing years, along with the receding hairline and similarly receding eyesight, is a marked acceleration in just how rapidly the aforementioned years appear to be advancing. I don’t know about […]

SOPHIA DEBOICK looks back on a year which saw the first stirrings of a new sound and a new character – the teenager If rock and roll was but a twinkle in Bill Haley’s eye as the 1950s dawned, 1952 saw it born, even if it would take time to mature. This was the year […]

Steve Anglesey, Matt Withers and Geri Scott discuss the week in Brexit, including David Davis’ dismal week and Chris Heaton Harris and Paul Dacre’s joint assault on universities In addition, the team talk the worst Brexiteers of the week, the sad death of a TNE institution, Jared O’Mara, what Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May smell […]

Neither carries a blackjack or a Tommy gun. But Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein are modern-day thugs, says Pulitzer Prize-winning writer ALBERT SCARDINO Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein were cut from the same roll of toilet paper. Both are pigs, both are thugs, both are American men of a certain age, a certain position of […]

Could Catalonia go it alone, and could Spain afford to let it? MIREIA JOFRE-BONET and ALBERT BANAL-ESTANOL analyse the economic consequences of Catalan independence The prospect of Catalonia seceding from Spain has never looked closer. Following a messy referendum vote on the matter (which the Spanish government refused to recognise but sent police in to […]

Twenty-five years on, is pioneering Euro soap Eldorado due a cultural re-appraisal? Not a chance, says ANDREW WOODS. In fact, we can add Brexit to this show’s rotten legacy You couldn’t lay all the responsibility of Britain voting to leave the EU on BBC1’s 1992 ‘Euro soap’ Eldorado. But it certainly didn’t help. A prime-time […]

STEVE ANGLESEY picks out the worst Brexiteers of the week 10 Henry Bolton Fresh from declaring that he could strange a badger with his bare hands, UKIP’s new leader has admitted that since the party is skint and his position is unpaid, he’ll probably have to sell his home to get by. No worries, Henry […]

Our editor-at-large writes the speech he fantasizes Jeremy Corbyn delivering to a rally of his faithful Momentum followers Last week I wrote a speech for Theresa May, which concluded with an announcement that she had decided Brexit was impossible to deliver. Sadly, she didn’t listen, and so onwards she leads us towards the cliff-edge. This […]

RICHARD PORRITT with the week’s big stories Thanks to concerned readers in academia, The New European was among several media outlets to receive a copy of Chris Heaton-Harris’ sinister letter to universities this week. Did this dunderhead Tory really think he could fire off veiled threats to vice-chancellors up and down the country in an […]

America’s culture wars have raged for years, says BONNIE GREER. But Eminem’s intervention is a significant one US art and culture are at war with the US President. This is nothing new. The play MacBird! opened on Broadway not long after Lyndon Baines Johnson assumed the presidency. A huge hit, the play, based on Macbeth […]

The department for exiting the EU has executed a screeching u-turn on whether MPs will get a vote on a final deal before the UK departs the union. Just hours after Brexit secretary David Davis MPs told MPs they may not get to vote on the terms of departure until the UK has already left, […]