Brexit

There was a time – in my political journalist life many moons ago – when I couldn’t imagine NOT being at the party conferences. This year, in a third and very different phase of my life, at both Labour and Tory Conferences, I couldn’t wait to get away. There was the period of my life […]

Steve Anglesey rounds up the losers and losers (because there are no winners) of another crazy seven days on Planet Brexit. 10. Jacob Rees-Mogg Told a Tory fringe meeting: ‘I think our Prime Minister is a heroine of 10,000 years and I welcome the every waking breath of the Prime Minister, our great leader.’ So […]

RICHARD PORRITT with this week’s big stories. Jacob Rees-Mogg, Brexit head-banger and anti-abortionist, used a fringe event at the Tory conference to back the current head of the party’s nutter wing Boris Johnson. Speaking at a Bruges Group event he said: ‘There has been too much crying into our soup and saying it is all […]

Brexit head banger Boris Johnson has suffered a bruising day at Tory Party conference as calls to sack him grow. (Left-right) Brexit Secretary David Davis, Chancellor Philip Hammond and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson listen as Prime Minister Theresa May speaks in Florence, Italy. Picture: PA – Credit: PA Wire/PA Images Just days before Theresa May’s […]

In an excoriating attack, Britain’s foremost philosopher and leading anti-Brexit campaigner AC Grayling denounces the public figures whose dereliction of duty has imperilled the national interest. I accuse the UK government and, with a few honourable exceptions, Members of Parliament from all sides, of failing our country and failing our democracy. Most of these charges […]

The UK’s foremost philosopher and anti-Brexit campaigner issues a searing attack on those who have imperilled the national interest. I accuse the UK government and, with a few honourable exceptions, Members of Parliament from all sides, of failing our country and failing our democracy. Most of these charges have been laid before in these pages, […]

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: […]

Jeremy Corbyn’s failure to do more to oppose Brexit is because he says the EU would prevent him delivering on his manifesto promises. But is he right? ALASTAIR CAMPBELL finds out The story so far… there was a referendum. Labour backed Remain against Leave. But the party’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, something of a lifelong Eurosceptic, […]

MICHAEL WHITE on Tory treachery, Lib Dem ambition and a week of serpentine manoeuvring in Westminster Another momentous week, another object lesson in how events, chance and human agency collide in unpredictable ways to produce profound consequences. Who could have predicted that cautious Angela Merkel’s decent instincts towards refugees – every German family knows first-hand […]

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 […]

STEVE ANGLESEY rounds up the losers and losers (because there are no winners) of another crazy seven days on Planet Brexit 10 Russell Brand Asked on Newsnight if he supports Brexit, the increasingly precious former comedian replied: ‘To be honest, I source my emotional connection to politics beyond those kind of parameters.’ Sadly, Rusty later […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Britain’s entry into Europe was a long, painful process – with clear lessons for our even more painful departure, says EDWARD BICKHAM, curator of a new exhibition on this pivotal period in British history During the late 1940s, Winston Churchill had been the darling of many European political salons as a result of making trenchant […]

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 […]

MICHAEL WHITE on the painfully slow realisation dawning on the Tories that Brexit is complicated and requires compromise How deeply irritating it must have been for travelling Theresa May constantly to be distracted all week from the draft of Friday’s ‘vision thing’ speech in Florence by the sight of her priapic Foreign Secretary wildly waving […]

RICHARD PORRITT with this week’s big stories The comrades are massing on the south coast for the Labour Party conference – but hidden by the raucous renditions of The Red Flag the whispers of division continue. With the McDonnell rule – meaning leadership contenders only need the support of 10% of their peers, not 15% […]

The venerable Dr Johnson described patriotism as ‘the last refuge of the scoundrel’. In our times, political scoundrels use nationalism as their last refuge, spiked with bitter xenophobia, and throw in some handy cynicism. They impugn migrants, refugees, immigrants, and people of colour. They upbraid powerless outsiders for the ills of this splintered, ungovernable nation. […]

Home Secretary Amber Rudd today accused her Cabinet colleague Boris Johnson of “back-seat driving” as the row over his Brexit intervention deepened. She publicly slapped down the Foreign Secretary after he used a 4,000-word essay in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph to set out his personal vision for post-Brexit Britain just days before the Prime Minister delivers […]

BONNIE GREER on the conviction that you can have your cake and eat it Like all questions that history deems to have ultimately been about a nation’s identity, its very soul, Brexit has quickly become a measure of more than itself. The pro-EU march on Westminster last weekend turned out Middle England, that bellwether of […]

MICHAEL WHITE on the coming post-EU withdrawal bill vote storm and what happens now we get into the detail Never boring, is it? Monday night’s second reading vote on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill may only have been classified as a Category 2 storm which passed through the House of Commons with limited damage to […]

RICHARD PORRITT with the week’s big stories So to Bournemouth and Sir Vince Cable’s debut at Liberal Democrat conference as leader. ‘We need to give people power over the decisions which affect their lives,’ he says in the foreword to the conference programme. Some might say giving the public a say got us into this […]

STEVE ANGLESEY rounds up the losers and losers (because there are no winners) of another crazy seven days on Planet Brexit 10 Michael Caine The 84-year-old actor told an audience at the Venice Film Festival that he supported Brexit because ‘I’d rather be a poor master of my own fate than a rich servant of […]