British Politics

STEVE ANGLESEY names the worst Brexiteers of the week. JOHN REES-EVANS More bad luck for the UKIP deserter who once famously claimed he had prevented a gay donkey from raping his horse. First, his new Democrats And Veterans party have chosen the abbreviation D&V – which turns out to be medical shorthand for ‘diarrhoea and […]

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 […]

Steve Anglesey names the worst Brexiteers of the week. Nigel Farage was told to ‘go back to where you came from’ by a heckler in Dublin. Picture: Yui Mok/PA Wire – Credit: PA 10 JOHN REES-EVANS The failed UKIP leadership candidate whose manifesto advocated a new social media network for Kippers – he should have […]

Theresa May’s visit to China laid bare one of the founding myths of Brexit, argues JONATHAN LIS. We are retreating from the world, not reaching out into it If you needed a clear sign that Brexit was in trouble, we got another one recently when the prime minister, pursued to China by a cortege of […]

RICHARD PORRITT with this week’s big stories, including an outlandish Danish immigration plan, why Austria is Europe’s ashtray and France’s least gangsta rapper In light of the latest polling, will Jeremy Corbyn finally wake up to the fact that much of his party doesn’t want Brexit? The youth vote, which has swelled the party’s membership […]

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 […]

RICHARD PORRITT with the week’s big stories, including clear signals in Austria, snow in Switzerland and Sweden’s most hapless burglar And so Theresa May heads off on a trade jolly to meet China’s President Xi Jinping when ideally she needs to be at home facing down growing disquiet among the ranks – both in and […]

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 […]

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 […]

Steve Anglesey picks out the losers and losers from another week on Planet Brexit – where there are no winners. Rosetta Tickner This Brexiteer Twitter user was outraged by the news that McVitie’s are cutting the number of Digestives in a pack by seven after the falling pound made ingredients more expensive. ‘Aldi & Lidl […]

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’; […]

Steve Anglesey ​picks out the losers and losers from another week on Planet Brexit – where there are no winners. Andy Pemberton News that Donald Trump won’t be visiting the UK after all has caused heartbreak in the Tendring peninsula, where former UKIP councillor Andy Pemberton was leading a one-man bid to lure the deranged […]

The week’s big stories, including Donald Trump heading to Davos, Klingon sensitivity and France’s daftest crook It seems the purge has begun after Momentum seized the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee this week. Momentum founder Jon Lansman as well as Yasmine Dar and Rachel Garnham – also backed by the fanatical, Corbyn movement – have […]

Readers of The New European react through our letters pages to this week’s cabinet reshuffle. Theresa May’s baffling treatment of Justine Greening is good for our cause. As a Remainer with a small majority in a massively pro-Remain area, she is now free to make the case for Remain from the backbenches and, more importantly, […]

Steve Anglesey counts down the worst Brexiteers of the week NEIL HAMILTON ‘We are looking forward to welcoming our new team member, Mandy Jones into the group,’ beamed UKIP’s Welsh leader on December 29, having won a long-running fight to get rival Nathan Gill to resign from the Welsh Assembly. Just 10 days later, after […]

RICHARD PORRITT on the week’s big stories, including a chaotic reshuffle, an unlikely resurrection and criticism of Portuguese parenting For a time this week Wikipedia listed among Chris Grayling’s roles ‘Conservative Party Chairman January 8, 2017 – January 8, 2017’. Conservative Campaign Headquarters veteran Iain Carter was the man at least partly responsible for the […]

Brexit is a career-killer for freelancers, argues reader Jayne Hamilton. I read your article on freelance musician Anneke Scott with sadness as I know exactly how she feels. If current negotiations are anything to go by, I will lose two-thirds of my livelihood at the very least because of Brexit. While companies export products, we […]

STEVE ANGLESEY counts down the worst Brexiteers of the week. BILL ETHERIDGE The West Midlands UKIP MEP believes he has uncovered a secret EU ruse to form an Olympic superteam at the 2036 Games in a cunning bid to out-medal Team GB. Etheridge told the Telegraph he had overheard plotters ‘using the word solidarity, which […]

RICHARD PORRITT on the week’s big stories, including stern warnings in Greece, unlikely heroes in Rome and Denmark’s most unfortunate taxi driver Sir Vince Cable’s vow to use the House of Lords in a bid to stop the UK leaving the EU will likely irk many Brexiteers. The Lib Dems have long called for reforms […]

Anthea McDowell writes that she is feeling more hopeful about the next 12 months in politics compared to this time last year. As 2018 approaches I find myself considerably more hopeful than at this time last year, when the twin blows of Brexit and Trump made it hard for many of us to get out […]

Readers had plenty to say this week about Nigel Farage’s claim he’s ’53, separated and skint’. Nigel Farage says he is ’53, separated and skint’. It is probably the first time one of his sentences has been two-thirds accurate, but the last bit really bugs me. Because Farage is plainly not skint. He earns £90,000 […]

STEVE ANGLESEY on how a book of less than 400 words provides the most compelling illustration of why Leave won As the news about Brexit continues to get worse; the writing about it continues to get better. What The Hell Happens Now by Ian Dunt, Tim Shipman’s All-Out War and Unleashing Demons by Craig Oliver […]

The big guns – Boris, DD, Farage – all had pleasingly tricky years. But here STEVE ANGLESEY picks out 20 unsung zeroes who brought their side of the argument into even bigger disrepute. 20. FRANCIS BASHIR Leader of the Royal Disciple Church, a Pakistani Christian sect which worships Nigel Farage. Congregants believe that the nicotine-stained […]

RICHARD PORRITT with the week’s big stories, including a diplomatic spat between Austria and Italy It is Christmas drinks season in Westminster, when journalists are tempted by cheap white wine and nibbles. The Number 10 event included invites to many of the biggest names in the UK media, to hear Theresa May chatting about her […]

Reader Paul Hollands spent a week on a pro-Brexit Facebook group to break out of the Remain social media ‘bubble’. I have spent the last week in a pro-Brexit group on Facebook. I did this to try and break out of my ‘bubble’, but also I went in search of the reason why people voted […]

MITCH BENN asks whether the likes of David Davis and Donald Trump have decided that shame is a sign of weakness. First of all, some sort of apology is order; I have been laid low with bloke-flu since last we spoke. It seems to be one of those annoying colds which wipes you out completely […]

The Prime Minister is doomed even if she survives yet another self-created crisis, writes reader Daniel Hunt. She is weak, lacking vision, and unable to unite her own party, let alone her coalition partners. The reluctance of the Tory plotters to knife her while Brexit remains in the balance is understandable. Less so is why […]

Steve Anglesey counts down the worst Brexiteers of the week. THE UKIP LION Though it was unveiled less than three months ago, the ‘Kippers are reportedly preparing to dump their lion logo after conceding that they cannot afford a copyright court fight with football’s Premier League, whose own emblem it closely resembles. UKIP insiders tip […]

RICHARD PORRITT with the week’s big stories, including Brexit health risks, trouble in Ukraine and controversy in Italy Nigel Farage’s former spokesman Michael Heaver has been chatting to the BBC about his time with UKIP. ‘Nigel Farage is such a machine,’ Heaver, who got the job aged just 27, said adoringly. ‘What was very important […]

MITCH BENN discusses how speaking in haste can often signal the truth I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying ‘there’s many a true word spoken in jest’. This is indeed the case (the whole satire industry depends upon it) but there are, if anything, even more true words spoken in haste. That is to say, […]

STEVE ANGLESEY counts down the worst Brexiteers of the week 10. LIAM FOX The International Trade Secretary delivered a tantalising hint of the amazing deals to come post-Brexit when he visited a bassoon shop in Newport. No doubt delighted to meet some other expensive wind instruments, Fox tweeted that Double Reed was an ‘internationally respected […]