News and Opinion

Ireland’s EU commissioner has blasted Britain’s “absurdist politics” and told leading Hard Brexiteers Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg to “shut up and let Prime Minister May get on with her work”. Phil Hogan, the European commissioner for agriculture and rural development, said that Britain was ‘trapped in a recurring cycle of silly behaviour’ over Brexit […]

Bungling Brexiteer Boris Johnson is to divorce from his wife of 25 years. Boris Johnson and his wife Marina Wheeler leaving Carlton House Terrace in Westminster after he resigned as foreign secretary Photo: PA / Isabel Infantes – Credit: PA Wire/PA Images The former foreign secretary and his wife Marina Wheeler have announced they have […]

When trade expert Jason Hunter humiliated Jonathan Isaby in a radio debate with come cold, hard facts the encounter went viral. Here he outlines some more incontrovertible truths to further demolish the Brexiteers’ bluster ‘Falling back onto WTO terms is nothing to worry about…’ So say many Brexiteers. But is true? First, it’s helpful to […]

Labour leader flounders as zealots keep of agenda on left and right Forget about Frank Field’s views on Brexit or council houses sales. Overlook his prickly loner’s distaste for the compromises necessary to party loyalty. The best comment I heard about the Birkenhead One’s tussle with the Labour leadership came from a well-placed veteran who […]

Leading Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg has been lambasted for spreading ‘fake news’ after admitting he had tweeted stories he knew were factually incorrect. A caller to Nick Ferrari’s LBC show raised the matter of a tweet from Rees-Mogg earlier this year which referenced a Sun article about potential savings on goods from Brexit. Social media users […]

Will there one day be a public enquiry into Brexit? Ponders Alastair Campbell Such is the Tory division over Brexit that Philip Hammond’s letter to MPs on the economic disaster that a no-deal scenario would represent was seen almost entirely in that context. Hardline Brexiters were ‘up in arms’ – when are they not? Theresa […]

The war on plastic straws might make us all feel better but we shouldn’t mistake it for serious environmental progress, says TRACY KING. This battle is just the latest example of eco-misdirection. Paper straws suck. This is not just a bad pun, but an immutable fact. Paper straws go soggy at both ends, especially if […]

Sir Vince Cable will quit as Liberal Democrat leader ‘once Brexit is resolved or stopped’. Jo Swinson, the MP for East Dunbartonshire, is the firm favourite to become the next leader of the Lib Dems. Sir Vince, who is 75, said he had already made it clear he did not want to follow in the […]

Hormone-pumped US beef would pose an ‘unnecessary and unacceptable risk to public health’ if it is allowed to be sold in the UK post-Brexit. That is the stark warning from the Food Research Collaboration which also said food safety standards should not be used as a ‘bargaining chip’ as Britain seeks to strike new trade […]

The hackneyed phrases being used by Brexiteers highlights the emptiness at the heart of their project In my first job as a journalist my news editor, a Belfast man with a wicked sense of humour, instructed me to ‘avoid clichés like the plague’. It was a test. If the trainee reporter laughed at this subverted […]

Theresa May claims that a ‘second’ referendum on Brexit would be ‘a gross betrayal’ of our democracy. Precisely the opposite is true. A People’s Vote is needed to make amends for the betrayal of democracy that was the 2016 referendum. Imagine we had a referendum on Marmite. Do you love it or hate it? That […]

Surely, given the ever-mounting evidence of a change of opinion regarding leaving the EU (as consistently evidenced by recent opinion polls) it is time to stop using the word ‘when’ we leave. It’s as if it’s an inevitable and impossible to change done deal. Instead we use ‘if’ which more accurately reflects the increasingly possible […]

In the fortnight since opening the European Citizens’ Initiative petition for UK citizens seeking permanent EU citizenship regardless of us leaving or staying in the EU, the UK has passed its target figure of 55,750 signatories. However the next highest-supporting country is Romania with just under 10% of its threshold target so far. Most other […]

Last year Labour did not debate Brexit at conference. As delegates prepare to meet in Liverpool at the end of the month RICHARD ANGELL outlines why Brexit must not be ignored again There was a significant omission from last year’s Labour conference – a discussion on Brexit. The biggest issue facing the country was not […]

Very few people know Theresa May well. But you don’t need to know her well to see the agony going on inside. Just round to the left of the front door inside 10 Downing Street is a small, unprepossessing waiting room. Taking pride of place is the framed text of Theresa May’s first speech as […]

How the teenagers who have turned 18 since the Brexit vote could be the ones to break the country’s deadlock. As the shambles of the Brexit negotiations have unfolded, many of the Leave claims have gone the way of Boris Johnson’s credibility. ‘Easiest trade deal in history’… Er, well, OK so no trade deal at […]

Play’s not quite the thing here The two apostrophes in Love’s Labour’s Lost do not engender confidence. This rarely performed work – uncertain if it’s a morality play, a bawdy comedy or just an excuse for a lot of exhausting verbal acrobatics – shows that even Shakespeare had his off days. The director Nick Bagnall […]

A former Fleet Street editor explains how the national press has abandoned its duty to inform in favour of printing propaganda The 2016 referendum asked voters for a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to settle whether Britain should remain a member of the European Union. Whichever side of the debate you were on, it was commonly […]

Nigel Farage seems to be struggling to make himself an international name as he is forced to move his Sydney gig to a smaller venue. Farage had claimed that he was enjoying a ‘successful start’ to his tour when he took to social media on Sunday. However, selling tickets for An Entertaining Evening with Nigel […]

In the absence of any leadership, party discipline or coherence on Brexit, the Tories have fallen into a state of constant, low-level civil war, with colleagues openly sniping at one another. It used to be said of Boris Johnson that he could refresh the parts of the country other Conservative politicians could not reach. That […]

Tony Blair thinks the Tories will be forced to support a People’s Vote because he believes Labour will scupper any Brexit plan put before MPs. Blair says the choices are ‘pretty narrow’ for what Theresa May can do to find a solution to her Brexit woes. The former prime minister has predicted ‘gridlock’ and ‘paralysis’ […]

Time is running out for a broken parliament The Chequers deal is dead-on-arrival in both Westminster and in Brussels. Boris Johnson is openly scorning the prime minister’s plan, while offering precisely zero details on an alternative. And Nick Boles has suggested the UK should jettison its current proposals for transition – which are themselves far […]

It isn’t rocket science. Governments smuggle out announcements on the last Friday of August, when parliament isn’t sitting, for an obvious reason. They want to bury bad news – usually very big bad news specially saved up for this very day of supreme national inattention. This year’s announcement on Friday August 31 was true to […]

Boris Johnson is facing a court room showdown over claims he made about Brexit during the referendum campaign. A private prosecution case is set to be lodged against the former foreign secretary who sensationally quit the cabinet after the prime minister revealed her Chequers plan. Marcus J Ball has spent the past two years building […]

Nigel Farage’s tour of Australia gets off to a false start Have the dangers of importing toxic amphibians been lost on Australia? In 1935 they brought in cane toads to deal with sugar cane bugs, then watched in horror as the warty pests began to poison their pets. And in 2018, the Aussies opened their […]

Paul Dacre’s Canaird River Company – backed by EU subsidies – reports record profits, Boris Johnson still refuses to acknowledge his Telegraph salary… and how Andrew Marr could raise his game if he only listened to his wife on Brexit. If Evgeny Lebedev and Sultan Muhammad Abuljadayel fail in their attempt to acquire the Daily […]

A new poll has found that Wales no longer supports Brexit instead backing a People’s Vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal. In June 2016 the Welsh population voted by 53% to 47% in support of the UK leaving the European Union, but a new poll of 1,000 people across Wales found that support has moved […]

A radio presenter had to jump into save leading Brextremist Jacob Rees-Mogg after he claimed that Brexit was a ‘fundamental error’. The slip-up came as the hardline leaver criticised Theresa May’s Chequers plan on LBC Radio’s Nick Ferrari programme. Replying to Ferarri’s question about whether or not the Chequers proposal could be ‘reworked’ he replied: […]

The Premier League is seeking to avoid strict post-Brexit regulations on signing European players which would have seen the likes of N’Golo Kanté barred from playing in England. England’s top flight has benefited hugely from buying players from within the EEA (European Economic Area), which has allowed clubs to sign them without a work permit […]

Dedicated Remain campaigners are set to launch a new book as campaigning for a People’s Vote enters a crucial period. Anti-Brexit campaigners with Madeleina Kay. – Credit: Archant Leading anti-Brexit activist Madeleina Kay has teamed up with University of Sheffield academic Barry Pierce to develop a new booklet entitled 24 Reasons to Remain. Through a […]

With the Space Race very much on, 1959 reeked of the future. And one band were particularly influential, Sophia Deboick reports. One event on its own secures 1959’s position in musical history. February 3 was ‘the day the music died’, when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper were killed instantly when the plane […]

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has called for Brexit to be halted and said a People’s Vote might be the answer. Burnham wants the exit from the European Union to be postponed to stop the UK crashing out without a deal. He now wants the negotiation period to be extended beyond the March 2019 deadline […]