News and Opinion

Post-Brexit trade plans will not properly protect the environment, finds a new report from Friends of the Earth – as campaigner KIERRA BOX explains If you like birds, breathing, swimming in the sea, angling, watching nature, a liveable climate, and all the other benefits of strong environmental protections, then you may be shocked to find […]

A council’s website still claims the next elections are for the European Parliament in 2019 – after the date Britain is due to leave the EU. The ‘elections’ page for Conservative-led Vale of Glamorgan Council in South Wales states that “the next scheduled Election is: European Parliamentary Election in June 2019”. The UK is due […]

Barry Gardiner’s comments were arguably worse than Owen Smith’s, but he kept his job. Why? Two shadow cabinet ministers. One, Owen Smith, called for a referendum on the final Brexit deal – admittedly in a break with Labour policy – and was swiftly sacked by leader Jeremy Corbyn. This in spite of the fact that […]

Tony Blair has ruled out leading any new political party but warned both Labour and the Tories there is a ‘vast uncultivated centre ground’ in British politics. But the former prime minister did say the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change was working on a raft of policies which could be used by a new […]

A shadow cabinet minister who described the Good Friday Agreement as a shibboleth has said he is deeply sorry that remarks he made about the deal had led to a “misunderstanding”. Barry Gardiner insisted he “absolutely” did not believe the agreement was outdated and said it was a vital part of the relationship between the […]

With a lust for dominance, not debate now in the ascendancy, the US has moved a long way from the country created by Alexander Hamilton and the other Founding Fathers, says Pulitzer Prize-winner ALBERT SCARDINO English visitors to America often remark on the intensity of civic engagement: the car bumper stickers and yard signs advocating […]

DJ Tony Prince has described his new radio station, United DJs, as “the Brexit channel”. So how bad is it? Former Radio Caroline and Radio Luxembourg DJ Tony Prince has described the new radio station he has founded, United DJs, as “the Brexit channel”. He means it positively. It is “just going to throw out […]

Tony Blair has warned Brexit is ‘bound’ to cause problems in Ireland. Reflecting on 20 years since the Good Friday Agreement was made the former prime minister said: ‘As a consequence you have changed the status of the Republic of Ireland to Europe and the UK to Europe. You’ve changed it from one of the […]

Rather than worry about AI becoming more human, we should be more concerned about the technology making us more artificial, argues Brendan Canavan Alexa’s creepy laugh is far from the most worrying thing about her. This is despite the fact that Amazon’s digital assistant – which allows users to access the internet and control personal […]

Forty years ago this week saw one of the most audacious and tragic acts of political terror of the 20th century. And, as PATRICK SAWER ​reports, its riddles still cast a long shadow over Italy The image is seared onto the memory of most Italians of a certain age – in much the same the […]

After Brexit the UK will have to go back to the drawing board over devolution, constitutional experts have warned. Wrangles over sharing out cash for farmers will be one of the biggest challenges ministers face, according to the Institute for Government (IfG). New agreements on how the environment, agriculture and fisheries are dealt with when […]

Plans for a new political party have been met with ridicule by Labour front benchers. The Observer revealed the plans for a new centrist movement which is said to have secured £50m of backing spearheaded by entrepreneur Simon Franks. The party – as yet unnamed and without any political backers –would draw policies from both […]

The notorious MS-13 is one of the most brutal criminal gangs in the world. But, says STEVEN S DUDLEY, who has spent three years studying it, the group is being used to push a specific agenda by the Trump administration – and that won’t help address the real problem Last October, attorney general Jeff Sessions […]

He may have been painfully lacking in self-awareness, and even discernible painting skills, but, as yet another major exhibition of his work opens, it is fair to say the French naive painter left a legacy nonetheless. IAN WALKER reports ‘You know, I could finish all these paintings.’ Henri Rousseau, after looking at works by Cézanne. […]

With chilling talk of a new Cold War, CHARLIE CONNELLY remembers one upside from the last one – gripping fiction Salisbury was, on the face of it, an unlikely setting for a chill blast of stale air from the Cold War to blow through the streets but the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter […]

Anette Schweizer argues that Remain needs to put a positive spin on freedom of movement to win the argument… I moved to the UK from Germany five years ago and live in a small market town in the East Midlands, in an average, middle-classy residential area. I love talking to all sorts of people from […]

Test yourself on some of the continent’s women of note with our great quiz Test yourself on some of Europe’s most notable women with our fiendish quiz. Caution – it’s harder to solve than Brexit…

A video of Nigel Farage thanking Steve Bannon and Breitbart for the Brexit referendum result has disappeared from YouTube following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The short clip shows the former Ukip leader holding a pint of beer and saying: “Well done Bannon, well done Breitbart. You helped with this. Hugely.” Mr Bannon has deep ties […]

Far from saving the BBC, its prostrate position on Brexit could be the destruction of it, says ALASTAIR CAMPBELL All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.’ These words, most commonly attributed to the 18th Century Irish-born Whig Edmund Burke, may have come from someone viewed by some on […]

David Miliband’s latest Brexit intervention makes perfect sense – let’s hope people are listening. At the end of a week when some in the centre have dared to dream about a return for the best Labour leader the party never had, Miliband has warned that Brexit could land Britain in real danger. And he is […]

The sun has just risen, but the Colombian side of the Simon Bolivar International Bridge is already a mass of life. Families stand dazed with their luggage, as assorted hustlers and hawkers shout and prowl. Anyeli Flores and her friend Santiago Batista. Photo: Will Worley – Credit: Archant But among the swirling crowds, one man […]

The state of the parties with local elections looming, the SDP and Liam Fox’s magical socks. Richard Porritt, Steve Anglesey and Geri Scott round up another week in Brexit. In this episode the team take a closer look at where the parties stand as campaigning for the local elections begins and they ask if a […]

Thomas Harris encourages The New European readers to ensure their friends and family are all registered to vote in the local elections… Theresa May asked the electorate last year to endorse her hard Brexit posturing. It delivered no such endorsement but she has carried with it on regardless. May’s ministers have continued to ‘negotiate’ with […]

The role of the public clock in the development of our communities has been much overlooked, argues devoted horologist PIERS FORD, as he argues why they chime with all of us​ As a child, I had no idea that everybody felt a little bit proprietorial about Big Ben. I didn’t know that when people spoke […]

Former foreign secretary David Miliband has again called for a second Brexit referendum, warning global instability since the 2016 vote has made it more dangerous for Britain. In an implicit challenge to Jeremy Corbyn to back a second vote, Miliband said it was ‘not good enough’ for Labour to join Conservatives in saying it is […]

In the 1940s, the Santa Monica house of the Austrian actress and screenwriter Salka Viertel and her screenwriter and director husband Berthold, became a literary and artistic salon for a community of exiled writers, artists, thinkers and scientists, who had all fled from the Nazis. Brotessender by Josef Scharl in 1930 – Credit: Archant Visitors […]

Knowing what we know now, how do we respond to Wagner and Woody? Changing cultural attitudes are forcing this question on all of us, says Bonnie Greer Walking through Tate Modern’s once-in-a lifetime exhibition, Picasso 1932 – Love, Fame, Tragedy, it is impossible not to think of the relationship of the genius and his muse. […]

Britain’s political heart is in the centre. The majority of Brits are not hard lefties or ring-wing extremists. The success of Tony Blair’s New Labour and – to a lesser extent obviously – David Cameron’s hoodie-hugging Conservatives prove the point. But currently we have a Tory party being driven from the backseat by a rabble […]

May’s local elections are a chance for the public to pass a verdict on the government’s handling of Brexit, Sir Vince Cable has said. The Liberal Democrat leader also urged voters to send a message to the Conservatives over “ideological” and “unnecessary” cuts to public services such as the police. Launching his party’s local elections […]

Comic book The Beano has written to arch-Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg accusing him of copying Dennis the Menace’s nemesis Walter the Softy. Taking aim at the Conservative MP Beano Studios warned in the mock legal note that his distinctive style is a rip-off of Walter and called on him to ‘cease and desist’. The Beano’s Mike […]

The latest allegations made about spending by Vote Leave during the referendum are gaining political traction. But it is worthwhile trying to leave the politics to one side, to concentrate, instead, on the claims from a legal perspective. Demonstrators at a Brexit protest march in Edinburgh, which is demanding a final vote on the Brexit […]

Silenced for too long, the cabby’s favourite station has given the Tory MP a regular pulpit to preach from For too long, the Tory MP has been persona non grata for most broadcasters. Choosing to focus on more moderate figures, the likes of the BBC, ITV and Sky have frozen out the Brexiteer to the […]