Opinion

Right-wing Tories will be furious, Boris Johnson and Liam Fox will resign, and we’ll stay close to Europe. It’s a no-brainer isn’t it? With David ‘Two Brains’ Willetts seeking to persuade the government to pursue a less isolationist post-Brexit policy, the time is surely ripe for the less cerebrally-endowed politician – Lord Lawson, Theresa May […]

The debate on the customs union is a golden opportunity for MPs to discuss, sensibly, the impact quitting will have on Britain. This should be viewed as a chance to convince wavering Tories to be brave when the vote really matters next month – it is time for members to realise sometimes they must put […]

As an EU national who has resided in UK for the past eight years, I will be using the ballot box in May to articulate my discontent with Brexit. Although local elections concern local matters, as an EU national I only have the local elections at my disposal to signal my disagreement with the Conservative […]

Alastair Campbell (TNE #90) reminds us of just how extraordinary it is that someone so clearly unsuited to holding public office as Boris Johnson has managed to gain such a strong foothold in politics. Gary Neville summed it up for me when, following yet another bit of foot-in-mouth idiocy as the foreign secretary suggested we […]

Both sides of Brexit think the BBC is biased towards the other side, as Chris Grey’s excellent piece points out. This may indicate that the Beeb is doing the right thing. So let’s just cut to the chase and stop hammering the BBC for showing or not showing any partiality during the referendum debate. What […]

For EU citizens who had been offered the right to remain in the UK the Government has failed to ‘take back control’, explains Paul Stein. In June 2017 TNE printed my letter responding to Theresa May’s ‘fair and generous offer’ to EU citizens living in the UK. Given that my wife entered the UK in […]

The worry caused to the Windrush kids shames us all. These Commonwealth citizens answered Britain’s plea for help and did their bit to rebuild after the devastation of the Second World War. And many of them, when they arrived in 1948, were fresh from those blood-soaked battlefields where they had served bravely against the Axis […]

Many Remainers believe a second referendum will be the silver bullet that solves everything by sending the issue of Brexit back into the abyss. But unless we can convince a good percentage of the disenfranchised working class who voted Leave, a second vote could stoke up far greater problems than we have now. We would […]

The idea of a new centre party is tempting for Remain voters left feeling disenfranchised by the attitudes of the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition. I believe it could succeed despite our electoral system. I have been voting for nearly 40 years and can tell you that even in the late 1970s […]

As a long-standing centre-right Tory voter for more than 60 years, I am appalled by the extremist slide which has moved the party too far to the right for my taste. In fact, it has become so right wing that it is similar to the Republican Party in the US, something which is contrary to […]

Why those attacking the BBC are picking the wrong target. For almost two and a half thousand years, political leaders have been warned against the dangers of shooting the messenger, and for much of that time the message has gone unheeded. Such is the risk for frustrated Brexit opponents focused on the BBC as a […]

The Daily Mail’s theatre critic has been accused of racism in his review of a play, says BONNIE GREER. He certainly doesn’t understand theatre Twitter has just experienced a first: a theatre critic set it ablaze. That milestone belongs to the Daily Mail’s parliamentary sketch-writer by day and theatre reviewer by night, Quentin Letts. He […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

So. Yeah. Easter. Bit of a weird one. For all that Easter is in many ways the direct counterpart festival to Christmas, the yin to Yuletide’s yang, as it were, it’s always been very much the junior partner. It’s just not as big a deal, for all that in theological terms the two festivals ‘bookend’ […]

The EU has more democratic checks than any other international structure we belong to. EU legislation requires approval both of those directly elected MEPs and of the Council, composed of national ministers accountable to national parliaments. The EU’s central administration, the Commission is headed by a team of Commissioners, each one nominated by the Prime […]

Tens of thousands of us march against Brexit in Leeds, Edinburgh, Brighton, Oxford and the rest making it onto the national news agenda. A handful of Brexiteers throw dead fish off a boat and the coverage is everywhere. This will shock some TNE readers but it isn’t an example of mainstream media bias against Brexit. […]

‘Exposure of Cambridge Analytica’s links with Vote Leave has obviously touched a raw nerve’ claims Anthony West. By crying foul at the Observer and Channel 4 and also haranguing journalist Carole Cadwalladr in the process, all Isabel Oakeshott did on the Marr show was to betray her anxiety that something was obviously amiss as far […]

Jeremy Corbyn’s dismissal of Owen Smith is yet more evidence that Labour is just as bad as the Conservatives when it comes to Brexit. Both are pursuing a disastrous Brexit with catastrophic outcomes as the end scenario. This is further illustrative of the long-standing fact that the 48% do not have a place in either […]

The Sun yesterday acknowledged its story on lower prices after Brexit was false. But Jacob Rees-Mogg, who enthusiastically endorsed it, remains shtum It was, by any standards, a belter of a clarification. Appearing on page 2 of The Sun yesterday, it ran to 214 words – incredibly, longer than the original article it was correcting. […]

We should recognise that however charmingly it is sold, what Rees-Mogg is selling is toxic, and not fit for consumption, says JAMES BALL During his early years in parliament, Jacob Rees-Mogg was a joke. Despite being the multi-millionaire part-owner and manager of a hedge fund, with hard-right homophobic and anti-choice views, his faux aristocracy was […]

Michael Romberg doesn’t believe Jeremy Corbyn will ever change his mind on Brexit – here he explains why. Those who hope that Jeremy Corbyn will change his line (Zoe Williams, The New European, issue 87) should imagine what his conversion-to-Remain speech would have to say. The first line is easy: ‘The deal that Theresa May […]

The entire web is built on the exploitation of our data, says JAMES BALL. The latest scandal asks serious questions – not just of the tech giants but of ourselves Every day we are all bought, sold, and traded dozens if not hundreds of times. Each time we click ‘search’ on the internet, companies compete […]

An anti-Brexit boyband has set off on their first European tour – and already they are wowing the crowds. Sir Nick Clegg, Lord Heseltine and Lord Adonis kicked off their tour of European capitals in Dublin by bashing Theresa May over the Irish border issue. Former deputy prime minister Sir Nick said: ‘We remain as […]

It is time to face the fact that Washington’s ‘special relationship’ is now with Moscow, writes MITCH BENN. There’s an inherent risk in writing on the topic of the many and varied scandals and intrigues which currently beset the Trump administration; that is, by the time you publish something, it is a pretty safe bet […]

In this week’s Brexit Deconstructed, JAMES BALL reflects on world events and the challenge Britain faces protecting itself post-Brexit. In the grim aftermath of the Salisbury poisonings, the challenges facing Theresa May – and the UK – in a post-Brexit future on the international stage become all too clear: the UK is simultaneously too big […]

Stephen Bayley wants to set the record straight on our original membership of the European Community – it was never just about trade, he argues. Reading the Wilson government’s leaflet about the 1975 referendum, sent to every household in the country, is a very interesting exercise. For one thing, it dispels one of the big […]

Expect much crowing from the government about the deal on the transitional period. Theresa May and David Davis will tell you this is a triumph and that Brexit is on track – sunlit uplands here we come … But that is not quite true. The European Union has made some compromises. But compare them to […]

Jeremy Corbyn’s response to the prime minister’s action over the Russian spy poisoning scandal was met with condemnation. And it was not just the government benches shaking their heads as he fell short of fully backing the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomatic staff – among other sanctions – but also many on his own side. […]