Opinion

MITCH BENN examines tweets from an organisation that claims to be returning conservatism to the grassroots A tweet appeared a few days ago from the group Activate UK; this organisation describes its objective in its Twitter ‘bio’ as ‘Creating a united platform for young conservatives and returning power to the grassroots’. Leaving aside the slightly […]

Fascism arises when people have a yearning for order and peace at any cost, says BONNIE GREER A recent image stands out. It is the sight of Vladimir Putin. He strides across a long expanse of stage to a rapturous standing ovation. He stands at a lectern, a huge backdrop behind him. The image on […]

It might not be getting many column inches, but what is currently happening in the Upper House is encouraging. Peers are conducting their detailed, line-by-line analysis of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill during its marathon committee stage. And so far it has not made pleasant viewing for the government. The bill has been pulled apart and […]

Alan Quinn argues that the Conservatives are putting party before country on Brexit, jobs and manufacturing. The recent article in The New European about the threat to our automotive industry is a stark reminder to us all about the insanity of Brexit. As my union Unite points out, one million well-paid jobs depend on this […]

In this week’s Brexit Deconstructed, JAMES BALL discusses how Trump’s ‘America First’ policy is bad news for the UK The UK is leaving the largest economic union of nations on the planet – which also happens to be right on its doorstep – and pinning its hopes on a new deal with the second largest. […]

The history and legacy of slavery is what this popcorn-selling blockbuster both fights and mourns, says playwright, author and critic Bonnie Greer Black Panther is on its way to joining an elite society: the Billion Dollar Movie Club. Steeped in Afrofuturism and African American phantasmagoria, this is the film that has defied expectations. And what […]

Rick Llewellyn wrote to his MP one final time before leaving Britain and emigrating to France. Here he quotes the parting words he received from his MP. On February 24 I wrote to my (now ex) Labour MP John Cryer asking to be removed from his mailing list. I explained: ‘As a consequence of Brexit […]

One reader has started defining the Brexiteers that the BBC and mainstream media continues to roll out as the ‘Dismissers’. I wrote to the BBC, almost daily, during the Referendum of June 2016 complaining of their bias. Then, as now, the Remainer argument is put forward first, to be followed by some standby Brexiteer who […]

David Woodhead wants to remind Eurosceptics what former Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher had to say about Europe. Andrew Adonis refers to Margaret Thatcher’s Bruges speech of 1988. Although this is regarded as having injected the anti-EEC/EU poison into the Conservative party from which we have suffered ever since, it is worth recalling those aspects of […]

Readers cautiously welcome Labour’s shift in position on Brexit – here they explain why. Jeremy Corbyn’s speech does not go far enough for me and I cringed at the ‘Brexit that puts the working people first’ soundbite. However this is a welcome first step. We have moved on significantly from sixth-form dismissals of the EU […]

Cakeism is now a thing. Coined in the pages of The New European by the likes of Bonnie Greer and Michael White it is a brand of politics aligned with populism – basically they tell the electorate, like Boris did, we can ‘have our cake and eat it’. Of course, that is utter nonsense when […]

Vladimir Putin is not going to be brought to heel with vague threats we might not send Prince Edward to football’s global jamboree Cancel the World Cup! Tear down the stadia! Burn the Panini albums! Rescind Clive Tyldesley’s flight to Moscow (actually, definitely do this one). For foreign secretary Boris Johnson has told the Commons […]

Donald Trump had Britain’s best interests at heart, said the Brexiteers. As he now threatens the world with a trade war, they’re being remarkably quiet One of the most curious assertions of the Brexiteers was that America, and, more specifically, Donald Trump, had Britain’s back. That, despite wildly diverging priorities and interests, Uncle Sam would […]

Why Labour and Tory propositions on Brexit are much less than they appear. The recent Brexit propositions of Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May have succeeded only in adding to the muddle. Picture: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Wire/PA Images – Credit: PA Wire/PA Images If you’re a politician, or a toddler, it is possible that you now believe […]

Everyone scoffed when Boris Johnson said Britain could ‘have its cake and eat it’ outside the European Union. And yet it seems Theresa May has chosen that slice of nonsense as the government’s starting position for negotiations. The prime minister apparently wants all the plus points of a soft Brexit – no tariffs, deals across […]

The pressure is mounting for our embattled, exhausted, enfeebled prime minister. With her crunch Brexit address looming large the clock is ticking ever louder for Theresa May and whatever she does she won’t please everyone. It has been another awful week for May – Jeremy Corbyn final has some skin in the Brexit game, her […]

The grey man’s moment is now, writes MATT KELLY, and it could be pivotal How times change. John Major, the grey man of Conservatism, today gave an almighty blast against Brexit with more wit, punch and clarity than even the master of communication who followed him into Number 10, Tony Blair, has managed. It was […]

Jacob Rees-Mogg, Kate Hoey, David Davis, Boris Johnson and that big red bus. Just some of the subjects covered by correspondents in this week’s mailbag. David Davis’ Vienna speech (it meant nothing to me) seemed to indicate that there would be no bonfire of regulations and standards after Brexit. Yet this is exactly where people […]

MITCH BENN has taken the words of David Davis to heart and is now ready for dystopia. Like, I imagine, a lot of you, I’ve been spending this week stocking up on crossbow bolts, carefully removing one sleeve from my old black leather bike jacket, and fitting my Toyota Aygo’s engine with an illegal nitrous […]

In this week’s Brexit Deconstructed, JAMES BALL discusses how chaotic governments can open the door to evil doings. When staff start briefing against the world leader they work for, the results are rarely flattering. Take briefings of one particular head of state, whose personal aides commented he would appear ‘shortly before lunch’, spending the morning […]

Brexit is on its way to becoming a mystical entity and a sign that the UK has gone mad suggests BONNIE GREER. Brexitarianism – we are now at the One True Faith stage – could soon achieve full convergence with that other True Faith: Trumpism. Just as one of the writers of The Simpsons recently […]

Readers are calling on Jeremy Corbyn to hold Labour’s own EU referendum and to act on party members’ wishes. The letter from Momentum supporter Jim Hoyle (issue 81) about attacks on Jeremy Corbyn in TNE misses the point. Huge numbers of Labour members and supporters, new and old, are bemused and depressed by the leadership’s […]

Weaker, poorer, smaller. JAMES BALL looks at how Brexit will enfeeble Britain sector by sector. Jacob Rees-Mogg is on the warpath. The backbench faux-toff, who now leads a grouping of more than 50 hard Brexiteer Conservative MPs, is doubling down with his insistence that assessments produced by the civil service on the impact of Brexit […]

Theresa May’s response to the devastating BuzzFeed leak of impact assessments is to say that they are irrelevant because the Government will soon sign a wonderful bespoke trade deal with the EU which will lift all boats and dispel all gloom. This is impossible because of the red lines she has already set down. The […]

Leaked impact assessments have revealed that a hard Brexit would shrink the economy by 8% and leave the UK £196bn-a-year poorer. Usually, when the government keeps something secret, it’s because the information isn’t widely known and would do damage to the country if it were made public. That’s why we don’t publicly reveal the location […]

Is it time for another referendum on Brexit? Our readers have filled our mailbag with their own perspectives on what happens next. I agree that referendums are a tool of demagogues and dictators, unsuited to a representative democracy, but now that we’ve gone down that road, it will take one to cure one. Matt Kelly’s […]

We need to confront the Angry White Man (AWM) emergency before it is too late, says BONNIE GREER. The following is one of the variety of reasons that Toby Young used to explain the campaign directed against him over his appointment to a new government quango: ‘I’m a middle-aged white male so don’t tick any […]

James Ball explains why when it comes to Brexit we are all just passengers in the back seat. Imagine, if you will, the United Kingdom as a car on a road. Millions of us are strapped in the back with no real say in where things are going at the moment – except for a […]

Mitch Benn uses his most tortuous analogy yet to explain why he is not rejoicing over UKIP’s downfall. As I lurch ever further into sullen middle age (notched up another birthday this week; growing old sucks, but let’s face it, it beats the alternative) I find myself taking refuge in nostalgia. BBC Four is rather […]

Banning hidden credit and debit card charges was not a Conservative government measure but the result of an EU directive. Our readers set the record straight. It was intriguing to note so many Conservatives, including the Prime Minister, claiming credit for banning hidden charges for paying with credit or debit cards. This was in fact […]

How much more can Donald Trump say before the US labels him a racist? MITCH BENN investigates So, the American people, the western media and the human race in general have spent the last few days reeling from the shock revelation that the man who opened his Presidential run by announcing that ‘Mexicans are rapists’; […]

James Ball gives a quick dummies guide to trade within Brexit, as it appears that there are plenty of dummies who need it. In two months time, the UK and the EU will begin negotiating their future trading relationship, and the excitement seems to be initiating a whole new wave of Brexit falsehoods, from the […]