British Politics

RICHARD PORRITT on the week’s big stories, including a big victory in Austria, the German foreign minister on the offensive and the prince of letters After all that fuss about Brexit impact statements, it appears they never really existed in any meaningful sense anyway. To widespread shock, David Davis admitted to a parliamentary committee on […]

‘Irish Border unthinkable’ says Boris Johnson. ‘Isn’t this the same person that said the EU could go a whistle for more money and that £350m a week would go to the NHS…?’ asks reader Tony Howarth. ‘Irish Border unthinkable’ says Boris Johnson. Isn’t this the same person that said the EU could go a whistle […]

Has the constant reel of Brexit news got you pulling your hair out? Comedian and musician MITCH BENN looks at one piece of news this week that has taken minds off of Brexit. Hey folks. Do you sometimes find yourself longing for the days when I – and everyone else – had other things to […]

STEVE ANGLESEY counts down the worst Brexiteers of the week 10 ALAN BRAZIL Brushing off the departures of the European Medicines Agency to Amsterdam and the European Banking Authority to Paris, the bibulous Talksport host assured listeners that ‘if we get a good Brexit there will be 5,000 jobs created for every 1,000 lost’. So […]

RICHARD PORRITT with the week’s big stories, including some good news on electric planes, some bad news for the Polish economy and some credit for Emmanuel Macron So we have got to that sad moment in the breakdown of any relationship where the shouting is over, the tears have dried up and all there is […]

Remainers are still waiting for evidence of the cunning traps Labour were going to set for the government during this process, writes one reader. Two studies have shown that Labour’s surge at the last general election was mainly due to voters perceiving them as the party who would deliver the softest Brexit, or no Brexit […]

I didn’t get much from my Twitter spat with Kylie Minogue’s songwriter, but his famous lyrics certainly sum up the mindset of Brexiteers. I won’t lie to you; this hasn’t been an easy gig this week. I don’t necessarily regard it as being my responsibility to put a comical spin on events in every issue, […]

STEVE ANGLESEY counts down the worst Brexiteers of the week 10 Stella Fellas No-one is suggesting that Brexiteers are desperate for some good news, but Daily Telegraph chief political correspondent Christopher Hope appeared to have caught a glimpse of those famous sunlit uplands when he excitedly tweeted ‘Stella is now selling beer in pint cans. […]

A look at the week’s big stories, including a riddle over Jeremy Corbyn’s name, the fresh-faced new mayor of Lübeck and France’s averted butter crisis Angela Merkel’s domestic discomfort has been the source of some schadenfreude for the Brexit brigade with Jacob Rees-Mogg, predictably, among those suggesting it could give the UK some handy leverage […]

Here is a flavour of some of the recent letters we’ve received in The New European’s mailbag. Send your letters for publication to letters@theneweuropean.co.uk Boris Johnson blunders over Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, with potentially horrific consequences. Boris then appears before the House of Commons but declines to apologise. Michael Gove appears on TV to defend Boris but […]

Britain’s tech sector is flying. But, asks ANGELA JAMESON, will new Government cash be enough to stop Brexit bursting the bubble? Bill Gates is to create a smart city called Belmont in Arizona in an attempt to build the desert state into a tech hub to rival Silicon Valley. Of course there is a long […]

STEVE ANGLESEY counts down the worst Brexiteers of the week 10 BILL ETHERIDGE ‘I have been extremely naïve,’ said West Midlands MEP and failed UKIP leadership candidate Etheridge back in 2015, after he had repeated Enoch Powell’s warning that multiculturalism would lead to ‘rivers of blood’. Happily Bill is a changed man and now acts […]

RICHARD PORRITT with the week’s big stories All hail to the mutineers! The Daily Telegraph pulled off a remarkable feat this week by outraging both Remainers and Leavers with their bonkers splash labelling Tory Brexit rebels ‘mutineers’. Even Brexit minister Steve Baker took a shot at the Conservative Party’s in-house newsletter, saying ‘colleagues have sincere […]

RICHARD PORRITT rounds up the losers and losers (because there are no winners) of another crazy seven days on Planet Brexit 10 Peter Lundgren MEP Swedish right-winger Lundgren has claimed this week that warnings about Britain being isolated and poor after Brexit are ‘bulls**t’. Phew. This from a man who represents a party launched by […]

RICHARD PORRITT with the week’s big stories ‘Can she last until Christmas?’ That is the question we pose on the front page of this week’s paper… and it’s a question a Number 10 insider answered with a sigh moments after her doomed conference speech last month. ‘Well,’ he continued amid the shock of the worse […]

Steve Anglesey counts down the worst Brexiteers of the week 10 Arron Banks If his lucrative dog-whistle business should ever go wrong, Leave.EU backer Banks really should consider a career as a psychic. Just after 9am on October 30 he was crowing on Twitter that the ‘Russian stuff out of the US against Trump… is […]

RICHARD PORRITT with this week’s big stories A Brexit stalemate, no money in the coffers and polls which have a hard leftie as favourite to win the next election – the news is not good for poor Theresa May. And now a raft of old fashioned sex scandals is set to rock her government as […]

STEVE ANGLESEY picks out the worst Brexiteers of the week 10 Henry Bolton Fresh from declaring that he could strange a badger with his bare hands, UKIP’s new leader has admitted that since the party is skint and his position is unpaid, he’ll probably have to sell his home to get by. No worries, Henry […]

RICHARD PORRITT with the week’s big stories Thanks to concerned readers in academia, The New European was among several media outlets to receive a copy of Chris Heaton-Harris’ sinister letter to universities this week. Did this dunderhead Tory really think he could fire off veiled threats to vice-chancellors up and down the country in an […]

RICHARD PORRITT on the week’s big talking points The chlorinated chickens have come home to roost for the Brexiteers this week. First lobby group TheCityUK says Britain stands to lose as much as £10bn in lost investments if a transitional deal is not worked out. Then the Resolution Foundation warned millions of families face shelling […]

STEVE ANGLESEY rounds up the losers and losers (because there are no winners) of another crazy seven days on Planet Brexit 10 Gerard Batten ‘English is not taught in our schools and hasn’t been for decades,’ claimed the UKIP MEP on Twitter, surprising hundreds of English teachers across the nation and enraging thousands of pupils […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

RICHARD PORRITT with the week’s big stories So to Manchester and the final party conference of the season – Conservative. Not many people expected Theresa May to be giving the leader’s speech in the wake of the general election disaster but she’s made it and is determined to reassert some authority. And one government aide […]

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 […]

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 […]

A new far right is on the move with a simple, scapegoating message. ANTHONY CLAVANE reports At the end of this month UKIP will elect a new leader at its party conference in Torquay. Anne Marie Waters, a founder of the far-right nationalist group Pegida UK, is one of the favourites to succeed Paul Nuttall. […]

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 […]