Opinion

This week in James Ball’s Deconstructed feature, we look under the bonnet of zero hours contracts; whether they are just a by-product of a changing economy, or whether they’ve been created this way. We tend to treat insecure work as if it’s an inevitable if dispiriting reality of the modern world. Immutable, inescapable. For many […]

Jacob Rees-Mogg’s photograph by Mark Harrison is a study in vanity, says BONNIE GREER, and it reflects the way our world is in 2018. ‘Mogg told me a ‘Gentleman never ever puts his hands in his trouser pockets’. I now always put my hands in my trouser pockets.’ So tweeted photographer Mark Harrison, a few […]

From Theresa May to Dominic Cummings to Arron Banks – readers ask who is really subverting the ‘will of the people’? Theresa May flouts the convention of balance in the Lords by appointing a raft of Tories to the upper chamber. Dominic Cummings, of the lying Vote Leave campaign headed by Boris Johnson and Michael […]

Is it really worth throwing the country into chaos just to save a fiver on a pair of shoes? Brexiteers say they want us out of the customs union to strike new trade deals so we can get cheaper footwear. Only problem is, leaving the customs union will be hugely disruptive and costly and the […]

Here’s a question for the next time you are in conversation with a confirmed Brexiteer. Ask them how being in the EU, has in concrete terms, restricted their lifestyle or made them materially poorer. Not how it has adversely affected some unspecified people somewhere else or people in a survey organised by the Daily Express, […]

This reader would like to issue an apology to the United Kingdom. Dear United Kingdom, Please accept my personal apology for the current creature occupying our highest government office. He is a disaster of major proportions. He is an ignorant, egotistical, cowardly, narcissistic, bloviating, sexual predating, misogynistic, uneducated, congenital lying, criminal miscreant. He has no […]

The American obsession with guns fails to stop dangerous obsessions with fantasies, says MITCH BENN. Something has to change to stop those fantasies becoming reality. I’m about to make what may or may not be a startling admission. See what you think. I had, all things considered, a pretty happy time at school. I guess […]

As Theresa May’s cabinet divisions continue to stunt the progress of Brexit, JAMES BALL examines the factors which could trigger another snap election. If you like putting pencil crosses in boxes it’s been a good few years for you. The UK had a general election in 2015, the Brexit referendum in 2016, and another general […]

Corbyn has enjoyed two strong PMQs in a row and both kicked off with zingers – sadly not this week. Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn Photo: PA – Credit: PA Wire/PA Images His decision to go with the NHS was not the problem. His questioning was. He started with: ‘In 2010 £4bn of NHS services […]

Reading the runes is tricky, but it appears that Theresa May could be more courageous than many of us thought, as she seemingly tries to avoid the hardest of Brexits. Criticism from Johnson and Gove suggests she might be positioning herself on the side of the angels after all. She should be brave and think […]

I’ve just had ten days in France and North Italy. As I was wearing my EU/UK badge, I got Brexit chat – three types. My summaries may be useful to readers who discuss more vigorously than this octogenarian. (1) Leavers in the group I travelled with were polite but firm: ‘Bureaucratic gravy train’; ‘Under the […]

Last Friday on the Daily Politics I watched a rather smug Peter Bone and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown discussing the mental stresses caused by the Brexit process on Remainers. The debate was good-natured and none the worse for that. Bone clearly feels the war is won and he can afford to be comfortable with his vision of […]

I have just done Kay Burley and Jacob Rees-Mogg a favour: earlier this month, at the multi-millionaire’s imposing country house, the pair had an cosy, giggly 25-minute interview whose obvious intention was to depict Jacob as ‘just like the rest of us, really’. An absurd concept, but a real gift for him. So I have […]

Comedian, musician and writer Mitch Benn discusses the similarities between Avenger’s character Thanos, and a certain MP. I don’t know what your favourite thing is about this newspaper. Perhaps it’s the publication’s mere existence, a printed voice of sanity in the maelstrom of blimpish Brexit lunacy which otherwise dominates the newsstands. Perhaps it’s the cast […]

Let’s cast our minds forward. Parliament has ruled out the ‘no-deal Brexit’ and we’ve had a People’s Vote on Mrs May’s final Brexit deal. She lost: the people support the status quo. Then what happens? Well, the next morning, Mrs May is still PM and she says: ‘I delivered on my promise to get the […]

Meghan Markle will be joining the last of the silent movie stars; the Royals. But for the American actress, this is her greatest role yet. The Royal Family are the last, great silent movie stars. Because if there is anything that is ‘the will of the people’, it is the Royal Family. We, the people, […]

With Trump backing out of the Iran nuclear deal this month, James Ball questions whether the EU alone has the power to keep the policy together. Foreign policy has always been a difficult and contentious policy area for the European Union – and always a point of friction with the UK, where even before the […]

The debate continues around this political cartoon. The Sajid Javid cartoon we printed in The New European last week. Image: The New European. – Credit: Archant Why I laughed at Neil Kerber’s cartoon had nothing to do with racism. It was because, although the Windrush issue, thanks to the Guardian, had been public knowledge for […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

So, it turns out the Bad Boys of Brexit were actually very bad indeed. Now Leave.EU backer Arron Banks has vowed to take the Electoral Commission to court over the £70,000 fine they have dished out. This is great news. Speaking on the Today programme he said: ‘We view the Electoral Commission announcement as a […]

Young men are railing against the unfairness of the womenfolk of the world’s refusal to have sex with them. MITCH BENN sends them a public message. I’ve been thinking, as it would appear have quite a few columnists of late, about the whole ‘incel’ thing. Now ‘incel’, if you are fortunate enough to have avoided […]

If the Government is willing to admit defeat on our train system how can they be trusted to sort out Brexit, asks a reader. When the government cheerfully admits that it can not even run a workable and fair rail ticketing system via Network Rail, why should we have any faith that it can develop […]

Northern Ireland might be about to bear the brunt of Brexit but new government figures suggest that the region will be woefully unprepared for it. The New European has learned that of the £3 billion set aside for the monumental task of unwinding the UK’s decades-long EU membership, just £15.2 million – 0.5% of the […]

I once wrote for Bill Cosby, but turned down a chance to do more. Everyone is saying ‘Bill Cosby was America’s dad’. An easy thing to say. But this is what it means: The great Lenny Bruce used to have a joke about black men on television and in the movies: the noble Sidney Poitiers […]

The post-referendum debate is centred around the rapatriation of powers to Westminster and London. Tom Parkin says the regions are being ignored. I live in Evesham, a rural town in Worcestershire that voted by 58% to leave the European Union in June 2016. Evesham’s heritage is agricultural, but its economy less so. Like much of […]

With UKIP’s voters returning to the Conservative party, Michael Culver argues it’s no longer a party for right-thinking people. I write on behalf of my wife and myself to express our total agreement with the views expressed by Roger Adams in his letter (TNE #90). The Conservative party today is no longer one for any […]

In the fallout of Michelle Wolf’s set at the White House correspondent’s dinner Mitch Benn explores the potholes of a misunderstood joke. It’s quite the week to be in the comedy business, and in particular the political comedy business. The fall out from Michelle Wolf’s set at the White House correspondents’ dinner continues to rain […]