Opinion

Mitch Benn discusses why Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party is not what the UK needs. I have good news and bad news. The good news is: you’re not going mad. The bad news is: you’re not going mad. Yeah, sorry about that. There are times when it might be comforting to be able to dismiss the […]

BONNIE GREER outlines why Joe Biden is the USA’s best hope to run as president. Former vice president Joe Biden finally entered the race for the Democratic Party nomination for US president 
and immediately became the front runner. This was capped by an almost immediate attack from Donald Trump, which must have made the Biden […]

JAMES BALL believes both the Conservatives and Labour are playing for a draw when it comes to Brexit, meaning we all lose out. Once again, the Labour and Conservative front benches are meeting up through the week to discuss a possible Brexit compromise. So far, so much groundhog-Brexit-as-usual. But unlike before, there are murmurings – […]

The desire to vote against something or someone you oppose will only get you so far, says MITCH BENN, at some point you have to vote for something. I’ve got a lot of time for Tom Watson. I’ve met him a couple of times and he’s always been personable and sincere. He turned up to […]

BONNIE GREER says it is Notre Dame de Paris’ historic obligation to take the benefice offered to it and to share it with the poor, the sick, the homeless, the elderly and children. The question as to why billionaires would prefer giving money to an historic monument rather than to the poor is a question, […]

JAMES BALL examines how Labour’s director of strategy and communication emerged as the key figure in Corbyn’s office. In Labour circles, he is described as Corbyn’s brain. Or – less flatteringly – Corbyn’s Beria, after Stalin’s most-feared secret police chief. Both reflect the immense power Seumas Milne is said to wield at the top of […]

A former Labour candidate and activist on why the latest Brexit fudge has left him unable to stomach voting Labour at the ballot box. After painfully considering how I would vote in the latest set of elections for weeks, if not months, I have come out of the polling booth not voting Labour. I had […]

In this week’s mailbag readers have sympathy for the Liberal Democrats, who reportedly wanted an electoral pact with other Remain parties. The European elections offered a chance for Remainers to come together to defeat Brexit. As leader of the Liberal Democrats, Vince Cable proposed a pact to both the Greens and Change UK. Both parties […]

MITCH BENN on the benefit of taking some time to regroup and plan. Ian Cognito, who died on stage. Picture: Contributed – Credit: Archant Some people have expressed alarm that, having fixed upon the in-no-way significant or ominous date of October 31 as the new deadline for resolving Brexit (one way or another), parliament then […]

Like Trump fans, Leave voters aren’t dismissing themselves as less intelligent. It’s their own leaders who think they’re ignorant. As active and vocal Remainers, we are often reminded of the importance of not yielding to the temptation of dismissing Leave voters as stupid or ignorant (and, moreover, of congratulating ourselves on our supposed intellectual superiority) […]

Bible stories that Brexiteers really shouldn’t try to adapt to their cause. For Christians, Lent – and then Easter – is intended to be a time of sombre remembrance and reflection as much as for others it is a time when you eat your bodyweight in chocolate. Brexit doesn’t merit ‘remembrance’ and, so far, has […]

DOIRE FINN says that the latest Article 50 extension only creates more uncertainty for the people living in Northern Ireland. With a new final date now set for October 31st, the idea that we are in for a ‘trick or treat’ Brexit has been widely expressed in various pictures, memes and suggestions for who gets […]

How Brexit has unleashed something that is both strange and unsettling. A woman I know – a confident, strong West End restaurant manager – came up to me and told me that her daughter refused to speak Polish to her. My friend is from Krakow, multilingual and happy in what she thought was her new […]

BONNIE GREER takes us on a trip to College Green to see what it has become since Brexit. Anti-Brexit campaigner Steve Bray stands with placards with anti-Brexit slogans near the mobile studios of media broadcasters on College Green. Picture: Daniel LEAL-OLIVAS / AFP) – Credit: AFP/Getty Images Before Brexit heated up, you could walk across […]

Mitch Benn says the Remain movement is still in full voice as Brexiteers call for the government to get on with it. It’s exhausting, this Brexit thing, isn’t it? Even if you’re not tasked with following and commenting on the whole slowly unravelling fustercluck on a semi-professional basis, just trying to keep up with each […]

Labour held on to Newport West in a by-election battle which saw turnout slump – with just a majority of 1,951 votes over the Tories. Green party candidate Amelia Womack poses for a photograph as she awaits the results of the Newport West by-election. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA Wire. – Credit: PA The contest was triggered […]

Will the thickest group of MPs in history ever be forgiven for the stupidity that jeopardises the future of 70 million? James Ball delves deep into the Conservatives take on Brexit. Mark Francois and Jacob Rees-Mogg as they might have looked as Spud and Renton in Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting. Picture: Archant. – Credit: Archant In […]

ADRIAN WAITE says people voted for Brexit as a protest about poorer communities being marginalised, but he says this will be made worse by the UK’s departure from the European Union. There is a housing crisis in all parts of Britain. A cross-party review has concluded that Britain needs three million more social homes by […]

I jointly run a local campaign group, Wilmslow for Europe. Last Friday we were planning to hold a peaceful protest of about 30 members outside the constituency office of our MP, Esther McVey. The local police gave our plans their blessing but in the end we were urged to cancel because we learned that the […]

BONNIE GREER on why white supremacists seeking to whitewash Europe’s history rely on a faux-medieval past. The doctrine of white supremacy is underpinned by a faux-medieval past and the look and feel of a 1930s Busby Berkeley movie. First, the phony white Middle Ages: The idea that Europe, from about the year 1000 to the […]

MITCH BENN says there should be awkward questions for the people who’ve been making a living peddling so-called ‘polite racism’. I found myself being interviewed on Turkish television last week, on the subject of Brexit in general and Mr Tragical Misery Tour himself, Nigel Farage. I was asked if I thought Nigel Farage was a […]

JAMES BALL on why, with ‘grim, awful inevitability’, the UK appears to be moving towards a general election. The UK is firmly and squarely in the doldrums. The saying might now refer to being dull, sluggish and in a terrible mood, but originates from the maritime world – referring to a few sections of the […]

MP JANET DABY explains that now, more than ever, ethnic minorities need to have their voice heard. https://twitter.com/EM4PV/status/1109060315369693191 With just a week before we’re due to leave the EU, parliament is yet to agree a deal. The prime minister’s deal has been roundly been rejected by parliament on two occasions. There is even an attempt […]

An friend’s experience of the American healthcare system showed BONNIE GREER the horror of a US-style NHS. A true story… About a decade ago, an old friend of mine from America and her husband Jerry were about to make the trip of a lifetime – a train journey through Europe. It was their first visit […]

Life as a Brexit true believer would be so much easier, writes MITCH BENN, but self-righteousness helps no-one in the long run. Something remarkable – indeed perhaps unprecedented – happened on last weekend’s Andrew Marr Show. A Brexiter told the truth about Brexit. Jeremy Hunt – for ’twas he – reflected on how easy it […]

As Theresa May’s deal falls again, this week marks the week British politics lost the plot, writes JAMES BALL. The principle of this column – Deconstructed – is to try to take Brexit (among other issues) apart, in order to make sense of them. It is possible that this is finally the week which poses […]

Dr Dani Loughran, the ‘lady in the maroon jumper’ who was labelled a hero for taking on Jacob Rees-Mogg on Question Time, on why we need a final say. https://twitter.com/Reasons2Remain/status/1096378829759758336 I am the ‘lady in the maroon jumper’, who asked Jacob Rees-Mogg about his complacency over Brexit’s destructive effect on UK industry on BBC Question […]

Donald Trump’s get out of jail card could sentence the US, writes James Ball. From this side of the Atlantic, it can feel like any day now Donald Trump will be moving from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to the confines of a jail cell. The walls certainly seem to be closing in on the embattled president. […]

While much of the country consists of the sort of constituency wherein, to quote the late great Alan B’stard, they’d elect a hatstand if you stuck the right colour rosette on it, hatstands is what we’ll get. Events are developing at a dizzying rate, and I’m currently suffering the after-effects of some not entirely successful […]

If you have the misfortune to be paying close attention to Brexit – a sensible choice, even if not one likely to spark joy – this week has, on the surface of things, looked like an exciting one. If you have the misfortune to be paying close attention to a Brexit – a sensible choice, […]

‘We are in a time – and rightly so – when we believe people who say that they have been victims of assault of any kind. We have to, because so many people have lived their pain, their lives unbelieved.’ Jussie Smollett poses for a booking photo after turning himself into the Chicago Police Department […]

‘If TIG should call by-elections so should the MPs in the ERG or linked to Momentum’ Labour and Tory representatives say MPs in the Independent Group (TIG) should call by-elections in their seats as they were originally elected on another party’s manifesto. If this is the case, why is it that MPs such as those […]