News and Opinion

I’ve just noticed; it’s exactly a year since my first column saw print in this esteemed organ. And what a year it’s been. We are indeed living in the ‘interesting times’ the Chinese used to curse each other with, are we not? One of the best AND worst things about this gig is the fact […]

Thousands of pro-EU protesters have delivered a clear message to Theresa May at Tory Party conference: ‘Bollocks to Brexit.’ The Stop Brexit float which led the marchers. – Credit: PA Wire/PA Images As many as 30,000 people peacefully marched through Manchester city centre after hearing speeches from prominent Remainers including Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince […]

Theresa May’s speech in Florence was truly derisible. The self-styled Boudicca of Brexit warbled on about the Renaissance and enduring partnerships, then proclaimed: ‘The UK has never totally felt at home being in the EU, perhaps because of our history and geography, the EU has never felt to us like an integral part of our […]

The Age of Gaslighting is upon us. The dictionary definition is this: ‘Gaslighting is a form of manipulation whose purpose is to cause the victim to doubt their own perception, memory and sanity; to destabilise.’ The term comes from the 1938 play, Gas Light, by that master of English pre-war melodrama, Patrick Hamilton. The plot: […]

Jean-Luc Godard’s À bout de souffle crackled and pulsed like nothing ever seen on screen before. IAN WALKER on a film which reinvented cinema and became not just one of the 20th century’s greatest films, but one of its greatest works of art They were fanboys scuttling around Paris in the late 1940s and early […]

As tensions rise ahead of Catalonia’s disputed independence referendum, only one thing is clear – the two sides are moving further apart than ever. ANDREW DOWLING reports An old refrain often used about Spain is that in the country ‘everything is politicised’. This became apparent following the terrorist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils in mid-August […]

Pyongyang is capital of the world’s most secretive, suspicious – and dangerous – state. COLIN ALEXANDER has visited and explains what the place can tell us about the regime and how its current high stakes stand-off may play out Most of the chaperoned tours to North Korea each year include a walk through some well-tended […]

‘Quick, Google him,’ came the cry from the press desks as the new UKIP leader was announced. Henry Bolton was announced as the new UKIP leader at the Riviera International Centre in Torquay. – Credit: PA Wire/PA Images Henry Bolton’s appointment caught almost everyone off guard. But in doing so it seems UKIP has stepped […]

A little-known man called Henry Bolton has been elected as the new leader of Ukip in a shock result. The outsider candidate beat the two front runners in the contest – anti-Islam campaigner Anne Marie Waters and London Assembly member Peter Whittle – to win with 3,874 votes. He told the party members: “Brexit is […]

The myth of Friedrich Nietzsche as the godfather of Nazism was created by his sister Elizabeth – but is that the full story? SUNA ERDEM explores a century-old case of fake news Friedrich Nietzsche is widely considered one of the greatest and most interesting philosophers of all time. The 19th century German thinker challenged accepted […]

RICHARD PORRITT with the week’s big stories So to Manchester and the final party conference of the season – Conservative. Not many people expected Theresa May to be giving the leader’s speech in the wake of the general election disaster but she’s made it and is determined to reassert some authority. And one government aide […]

Ukip were widely mocked across social media today after unveiling a new lion logo bearing a remarkable similarity to the Premier League’s. The party, which will name its new leader at its conference in Torquay today, said it was one of several ideas for a new logo. Members will choose one today by placing a […]

Germany is seen as Europe’s dull but stable backbone. But for how much longer, asks JASON WALSH? It should have been a resounding victory, and looked at through squinted eyes, perhaps it is. Angela Merkel will be re-appointed chancellor of Germany, leading the country for a fourth term – something that has only happened once […]

Labour MPs HEIDI ALEXANDER and ALISON McGOVERN on why their party cannot continue to brush Brexit under the carpet Like the German word schadenfreude there is doubtless a compound noun somewhere that perfectly encapsulates a dilemma you pretend to grapple with whilst never really dealing with it in any serious or honest way. If it […]

If you’re heading to the Stop Brexit march in Manchester on Sunday you’ll want to take these posters Heading to the Stop Brexit march in Manchester in Sunday? Then as a New European reader you won’t want to be without one of our brilliant and suitably Mancunian placards we’ve created especially for the occasion. Download […]

Jeremy Corbyn and his Momentum supporters have a stranglehold on the Labour Party. RICHARD PORRITT reports from Labour conference on the impact that is having on the party’s Brexit stance A few hundred yards from the armed police that patrol the entrance to the Brighton Conference Centre a queue snakes around the block. Young and […]

Brexit was bad enough, now John McDonnell has given businesses even more to think about. ANGELA JAMESON reports Which is the bigger economic crisis facing the UK – the prospect of leaving the EU without any trade deal or a Labour government with Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister and war-gaming John McDonnell as his renationalising […]

BONNIE GREER on the late Sir Peter Hall, a man who revolutionised English-speaking theatre Peter Hall called his memoir Making An Exhibition Of Myself, a phrase his mother would hurl at him from time to time. An only child, and the grandson of Queen Victoria’s ratcatcher, he was born in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, a […]

The grassroots movement to stop Brexit returns to the streets this weekend with a mass march in Manchester. Organiser PETER FRENCH issues a rallying cry A friend of mine who will be taking part in Sunday’s Stop Brexit march has only recently become an active participant in our fight. He told me he had decided […]

Former Labour minister DENIS MACSHANE gives his snap verdict on the speech Jeremy Corbyn gave today Jeremy Corbyn’s keynote conference speech was carefully calibrated to stay on not-quite diverging tramlines with Theresa May but he at least dropped Labour language that the EU was responsible for driving down wages in Britain because of freedom of […]

If you thought you couldn’t see anything more embarrassing from the Brexit fall-out than the March For Leadsom on Parliament, think again. An enterprising elderly warbler has taken to YouTube to voice his support for exiting the EU via the means of a mind-numbingly awful music video. The Brexit Song (We’ll Be Strong) by Peter […]

Boris Johnson’s Brexit intervention has put the focus back on statistics, says ANGELA JAMESON. And the actual numbers do not look good Boris Johnson has done more to stimulate interest in how statistics are used and abused in the last few days than the UK Statistics Authority has managed in its 10 year lifetime. BoJo’s […]

It might have recently been overshadowed by other crises, but the Israeli-Palestinian dispute still simmers dangerously, says PAUL KNOTT Europe is reluctant to get deeply involved in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. It is distracted by seemingly more urgent issues and tells itself that only the US has any real influence on the matter. But this festering […]

There is a way to understand how much the nation has changed since the EU referendum vote. In place of a kind of hard-headedness, that famed ‘British common sense’ that we immigrants find a hallmark of life on this island, there has emerged a kind of dream state. This Britain, woolly and dreamy, is like […]

Sir Keir Starmer has said Labour could negotiate “a new single market relationship” with the EU after Brexit. The Shadow Brexit Secretary said options for retaining the benefits of the single market and customs union “should not be swept off the table”, as he also mentioned a new bespoke trade deal. Sir Keir told the […]

Jeremy Corbyn appeared to pour cold water on demand from Labour members to back membership of the single market, suggesting it could hinder his plans to nationalise the railways. More than 40 senior Labour figures, including 30 MPs, have signed an open letter in the Observer today urging the leadership to commit to remaining in […]

In the second part of the our exclusive serialisation from his latest diaries, ALASTAIR CAMPBELL describes how internal Labour opposition to Gordon Brown crumbled, tensions with Cherie Blair and Muammar Gaddafi’s incredulity that Tony Blair was stepping down Tuesday February 27, 2007 To lunch with Rebekah Wade. Chatted re her situation. (In 2005, Wade, now […]

PAUL CONNEW on the US president The word out of the White House is that Donald Trump considers Boris Johnson has ‘something of the clown’ about him. A viewpoint that their fairly brief encounter at the UN in New York this week did little to dispel apparently. The temptation is to dismiss one flaxen-haired egomaniac […]

MITCH BENN lays out how to understand the Brexiteering foreign secretary First rule of Boris Johnson; it’s all about Boris Johnson. Second rule of Boris Johnson; it’s ALL about Boris Johnson. Boris Johnson may, on occasion, have taken actions which benefitted people besides himself (I’ll put my hand up right now and acknowledge that his […]

Labour’s position on Brexit is softening, says NATHANIEL TAPLEY, and the 48% should get off Jeremy Corbyn’s back The greatest threat to the cause of Remaining are large swathes of the country who are in the grip of Corbyn-fever. There are activists and commentators whose every article, every statement, every position is all about the […]

Theresa May has ruled out Britain staying in the European Economic Area or striking a deal with the EU similar to the one Canada enjoys during a speech meant to kick-step Brexit negotiations. (Left-right) Brexit Secretary David Davis, Chancellor Philip Hammond and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson listen as Prime Minister Theresa May speaks in Florence, […]

This is a sumptuous revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman’s 1971 homage to departed American musical theatre, says Martin McQuillan After the success of La La Land a canny producer at the National has decided to bring back the original musical of unhappy endings to create a theatrical blockbuster, a glorious hit that can […]