Brexit

PAUL KNOTT finds unlikely inspiration for the anti-Brexit cause in a 40-year-old document from behind the Iron Curtain which succeeded in exposing the flaws inherent in a doomed system. Among 2017’s many notable anniversaries – from the Reformation to the Russian Revolution – is another in danger of slipping by without due attention, and one […]

This week’s podcast looks at the the Racial Disparity Audit and the Brexiteer of the Week. A review of the week’s Brexit news with host Richard Porritt, joined by Steve Angelsey and Geri Scott. Richard, Steve and Geri round up another week in politics, take a look at the Racial Disparity Audit and crown another […]

The government’s latest intervention in the housing market is a yet another symptom of a distracted administration failing to grasp the right solutions, says ANGELA JAMESON. Our housing market is broken, even the Government admitted as much earlier this year. So why then, is Theresa May pumping more tax payers’ money into the Help to […]

Steve Anglesey rounds up the losers and losers (because there are no winners) of another crazy seven days on Planet Brexit. 10. Katie Hopkins The peroxide hate machine appears to have gone Full Icke after last Saturday’s road traffic accident near London’s Natural History Museum. Having initially deleted tweets including ‘dear tourist, right now London […]

Even before it has happened, Brexit is reducing Britain’s power in Europe and so our standing in the world. Diplomats and civil servants know it. Business leaders know it. Our Prime Minister knows it, and probably looks so strained and ill because having – unlike her clownish Foreign Secretary – gone into the detail she […]

RICHARD PORRITT with this week’s big stories. ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ asked a depressed Number 10 staffer at the news Theresa May was to do an LBC phone-in. She wanted to talk about the government’s newly-announced race audit but the callers wanted to talk about that and much more. One asked about whether she […]

It’s not a stretch to say that the economics of digital advertising are to blame for disasters like Brexit and Trump. It sounds simplistic, but the means by which the news and opinion that sway public opinion get disseminated is dictated by which is likely to generate revenue for news publishers. Unfortunately, over the past […]

For decades, European migrant labour has been part of the British rural landscape. Now, in pursuit of a fantasy, Brexit risks leaving the soft fruit and veg industry to decay. SIMON WATKINS reports. The landscape is straight out of The Darling Buds of May, or perhaps Nigel Farage’s English pastoral fantasy. Rolling hills, touched with […]

The deluded fantasies of Leavers must have been inspired by the big screen says Have I Got News For You writer NATHANIEL TAPLEY. Here, he brings you the most Brexity films of all time. Back in the distant reaches of history – the late 1990s – entertainment was a very different thing. Before streaming services […]

The real question of the Age is the question of authenticity. Jeremy Corbyn is authentic. Theresa May is not. During the US presidential election, for many, Donald Trump was authentic. For many, Hillary Clinton was not. Boris Johnson is seen as ‘Boris-is-Boris’. Authentic. Philip Hammond is ‘Spreadsheet Phil’, the Remainer, slowing down the Brexit juggernaut. […]

This week’s podcast looks at the calamitous Tory conference in Manchester, an odd few days with UKIP and the Brexiteer of the week. A review of the week’s Brexit news with host Richard Porritt, joined by Steve Angelsey and Geri Scott. Richard, Steve and Geri review the calamitous Tory conference in Manchester, an odd few […]

Once the darling of Tory members Boris Johnson is playing a high-risk game, says RICHARD PORRITT. For Theresa May the Conservative Party conference was a round robin apology. At behind-closed-doors meetings, again and again she apologised for the Tories who lost seats or had big majorities almost wiped out in June’s general election. Although she […]

As conference season draws to a close, former Tory candidate turned radio talk show host IAIN DALE charts the fortunes of those who have been on manoeuvres – and makes some tentative predictions/ Back in early April, Theresa May was mistress of all she surveyed. Her first eight months had been a success. She was […]

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 […]