News and Opinion

Officials in the UK and US administrations directly involved with trade negotiations are “sceptical” that a deal of any significance between the two countries can be forged after Brexit, according to a report. The report by Harvard University academics, including former shadow chancellor Ed Balls, warns that the kind of free trade agreement (FTA) likely […]

Benedict Cumberbatch will star as Vote Leave’s leading strategist in a Channel 4 drama about the data-driven political campaign for Brexit. The political thriller will be set during the EU referendum. The one-off drama will explore the “myriad tactics employed to swing one of the most surprising referendum results in living memory”. Doctor Strange star […]

Jeremy Corbyn used all six of his questions at PMQs on Brexit for the second week running – but what is his real motivation? Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn speaks during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons – Credit: PA Wire/PA Images The Labour leader started with a real-deal zinger: ‘When the prime […]

TIM WALKER gives five stars to Red at London’s Wyndham’s Theatre Red Wyndham’s Theatre, London, until July 28 ***** (FIVE STARS) A great play talks to you because it talks to you about your own life. Red is such a play. It tells the story of how the brilliant, unconventional artist Mark Rothko took a […]

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has voted for a referendum on the final Brexit deal. The resolution at the group’s annual meeting in Belfast was passed by 364 votes to 163. It had been proposed by the body’s Greater Glasgow group and mandated the organisation to lobby the government on the issue. The RCN […]

Labour is launching a new parliamentary bid to force the government to release details of its proposals for post-Brexit customs arrangements on the Irish border. The party has tabled a motion in the Commons for debate tomorrow designed to break the “deadlock” over the so-called “customs partnership” and “maximum facilitation” models. The move came as […]

MSPs at Holyrood have formally refused to grant consent to key Brexit legislation from Theresa May’s government. A Scottish Government motion, making clear that Edinburgh Parliament “does not consent” to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill was approved by 93 votes to 30. Despite the vote, Scottish Brexit Minister Mike Russell has vowed this will “not […]

A new musical imagining the alt-right personality’s fictional murder has plenty to say about hate speech and polarised opinions, says MARTIN McQUILLAN. But is she worth the attention? The Assassination of Katie Hopkins. Photo: Contributed. – Credit: Archant Last year, I came across Katie Hopkins standing in front of me in the queue at the […]

Boris Johnson has insisted he still believes in, and abides by, Cabinet collective responsibility after being mocked for his “crazy” Brexit plans. The foreign secretary answered “of course” when challenged in the Commons about the convention following his public criticism of a customs proposal supported by the prime minister. He also sidestepped Labour questions over […]

Nowhere better captures Italy’s complex relationship with fascism than Predappio, the birthplace of Mussolini. CLARE SPEAK paid a visit Inside a Predappio souvenir shop. PHOTO: Clare Speak. – Credit: Archant The sunlit Piazza Sant Antonio in Predappio sits in front of the church of the same name. On most days it is a peaceful square […]

A constitutional crisis is looming as the Scottish Parliament appears poised to formally refuse to give consent to Theresa May’s Brexit legislation. After months of wrangling with Westminster over where powers returning from Brussels should go after Brexit, the Scottish Government has submitted a motion making clear it does “not consent to the European Union […]

The recent local election results show that the capital’s Remain vote poses a challenge for both the Conservatives and Labour, writes BARNABY TOWNS Post-election spin about the meaning of May’s local elections is almost as fierce as the contest itself. London’s 2018 all-out local elections — the 14th since the 32 London boroughs were created […]

Forget the future, dystopia has already descended – and it isn’t half dull. ADRIAN BURNHAM reports on a web group chronicling modern life’s mind-crushing mundanity Images posted on the Boring Dystopia Reddit group. – Credit: Archant When it came to life-goals advice the only wise counsel my dad proffered was: ‘Aim for the stars son […]

Nigel Farage’s market value as a speaker would appear to be plummeting as rapidly as UKIP’s standing in the polls. Freddie Fox arrives for the First Light Awards, a celebration of the next generation of British filmmakers held at the Odeon Leicester Square, London. – Credit: PA Archive/PA Images Mandrake hears that the man who […]

Three decades after the death of Kim Philby, perhaps Britain’s most notorious spy, CHARLIE CONNELLY ponders the changing nature of espionage British spy John Cairncross. Photo: UGC. – Credit: UGC Thirty years ago this week a solemn procession made its way slowly through Moscow’s Kuntsevo cemetery on the banks of the Setun river. An open […]

STEVE ANGLESEY picks the losers and the losers – because there are no winners – from another week on Planet Brexit JACOB REES-MOGG He’s already known for Victorian attire, issuing coded threats via the press and having three words in his name. Now a Sky News interview at his palatial home reveals he has a […]

Much has been said over the BBC’s possible Brexit bias, but what about Sky News, asks a reader. Much has been said over the BBC’s possible Brexit bias, but what about Sky News’ Sunrise? What is the point of having two guests in its Paper Review, if articles are shared between the pundits for them […]

Shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer believes neither of the government’s customs solutions will succeed. And Sir Keir launched an attack at the cabinet saying the squabbling between ministers was ‘farcical’. He told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show: ‘I think we are in a farcical situation at the moment, nearly two years after the referendum […]

Former Labour heavyweight David Miliband has joined a cross-party bid to take on the Brexiteers. Miliband, who quit as an MP after losing the Labour leadership to his brother Ed in 2010, will share a platform with Tory ex-education secretary Nicky Morgan and Liberal Democrat former deputy PM Sir Nick Clegg to push for a […]

The assessment of the Liverpool manager has come through. ALASTAIR CAMPBELL says people do respect longevity Tory MP @JohnRedwood refuses to debate Brexit and the Customs Union with @Femi_Sorry pic.twitter.com/bYrqywmaFd— Our Future, Our Choice! (@OFOCBrexit) May 6, 2018 I’ve been trying to think of other people who, when taken ill, would have been met with […]

​The free press attacked, migrants degraded and liberalism in tatters – YASMIN ALIBHAI-BROWN on what must happen to ensure the European dream is not destroyed Europe Day is commemorated across the continent on May 9 every year. It acclaims peace between the nations and subtly reminds Europeans about its bloody past and institutionalised barbarisms. The […]

Earlier this year The New European published a letter by me about an negative experience I had in Essex at Christmas. I – a woman of colour, domiciled in France – felt racially harassed at Southend airport when returning to Britain to visit my children. I attributed this, and still do, to the toxic climate […]

Trump’s new top legal representative is emerging as a key political strategist, says PAUL CONNEW. His firings are usually more eye-catching than his hirings, but Donald Trump’s appointment of Rudy Giuliani as head of his troubled legal team has swiftly proved tactically explosive, both in legal and political terms. The pugnacious former mayor of New […]

RICHARD LUCK ponders one of the great modern conspiracy theories It was a remarkable year for British music, 1968. The Beatles released The White Album, the Stones set Beggars Banquet before the hungry masses, The Who began recording Tommy and, under the guise of The New Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin played their first concert. Meanwhile, Cream […]

Former attorney general Dominic Grieve has called for Boris Johnson to resign from the Cabinet. Grieve, who has been one of the leading Tory critics of the Government’s Brexit stance, rounded on the Foreign Secretary after Johnson described a customs partnership deal with the EU being considered by Prime Minister Theresa May as ‘crazy’. Grieve […]

Jeremy Corbyn will commit a ‘serious evasion of duty’ if he does not change course and back the UK retaining key aspects of the single market after Brexit, the former Labour leader Lord Kinnock has claimed. In a strongly-worded attack, the peer signalled that Labour MPs should defy the party leader if he repeats instructions […]

The will of the people want to stay within the Customs Union with the EU, argues Paul Smith. On last week’s Question Time, Martin Lewis, the undisputed master of figures and logic, made a crucial point on an imaginary referendum about staying in the customs union: ‘One would assume most Remainers were in favour of […]

It seems that, having done its dirty work, UKIP is content to fade into the background. Even to the extent of likening itself to a potentially recurrent strain of plague bacillus that will surface again in the event of an ‘unsatisfactory’ Brexit agreement. Having gleefully spooked David Cameron into calling what has subsequently come to […]

I voted for Brexit. I never expected it to actually happen. I voted for Brexit. I never expected it to actually happen. When I ticked the box marked No, I believed my vote would be a stern warning to the Eurocrats that their power had extended too far and that they were meddling too much […]

Giuseppe Sollazzo on one of the contest’s memorable winners – a love song to the single market Could a song about the European Union win the Eurovision contest? This is not an academic question: it happened in 1990. That year, Italy won with Insieme: 1992 (Insieme means ‘together’), a celebration of the single market. Its […]

Tory posturing gives Labour’s leader an opportunity… but will he take it, asks JANE MERRICK Two of the MPs most likely to be the next Conservative leader have been scrambling for attention this week. Clearly motivated by the prominence of Sajid Javid, whose stellar rise to home secretary prompted a wave of profile pieces tipping […]

Popbitch’s Eurovision team give the lowdown on who to watch out for in this year’s contest The One For A Social Conscience – France A he-she duo called Madame Monsieur, with a gentle pop hymn about a Nigerian child called Mercy, who was born on a migrant boat in the Mediterranean at the height of […]