News and Opinion

A German government minister has thanked Boris Johnson for promoting his coronavirus tracing app after the prime minister tried to downplay its success in parliament. Jens Spahn – Germany’s health minister – said his country’s track-and-trace app worked ‘very well’ and had been downloaded more than 15 million times. ‘I’m happy that someone helped us […]

MITCH BENN sees 2020 as the perfect time for Sapphire and Steel to return – as something has definitely gone wrong with time. Okay so who remembers Sapphire & Steel? I’m guessing that most of you of a similar (increasingly dusty and obscure) vintage as myself will recall Sapphire & Steel being on prime time […]

TIM WALKER examines the life of the actress who finally found contentment. When I interviewed Susannah York in the late 1980s, she was nudging 50 and going through a tough time. She had lately lost her elder sister Carolyn to alcoholism. She was making films like Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and guest-starring in […]

One reader thinks Boris Johnson will resign after claiming he has achieved his goal of getting Brexit ‘done’. Am I the only person who thinks the career psychopath and his mop-haired poodle will have resigned by the end of the year, claiming how they courageously managed to ‘get Brexit done’? Job done: Maximum destruction and […]

A Tory backbencher has desperately tried to blame Brussels for the possibility of a no-deal Brexit by accusing ‘EU bureaucracy’ for the recent slowdown in talks. In the latest swipe at Brussels, prominent Eurosceptic MP Andrew Bridgen said it was the bloc’s ‘bureaucracy’ that was risking talks ending in no deal. He told the Express: […]

Labour will fare better once the issue of Scottish independence is resolved, claims reader David Roche. It was heartening to see four letters supporting the further (d)evolution of the well-past-its sell-by date United Kingdom in TNE #201. In particular, councillor Andrew Parrott’s rationale – as a ‘liberal Englishman’ with sympathy for liberal-Labour policies – for […]

An opportunity to propose questions to Boris Johnson during an online ‘People’s PMQs’ went wrong after a majority of questions proposed to the prime minister were hostile and critical. Dubbed ‘People’s PMQs’, any member of the public can submit a question to the prime minister, with the least critical questions pre-selected and put to Johnson […]

Germany’s new presidency of the EU Council seems like fortuitous timing in terms of Brexit negotiations. It’s not, says KAI OPPERMANN. This month Germany took over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU at a time when the coronavirus confronts the bloc – in Angela Merkel’s words – with the greatest challenge in […]

Former chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee and ex-attorney general Dominic Grieve has questioned a proposal to make Chris Grayling his successor. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Grieve said any new chair would need to hold cross-party ‘respect’. He said: ‘The whole point about this committee is it is non-partisan. Have your […]

More than 100 MPs and peers have united to demand the BBC protect its Politics Live programme from the axe so that it can continue scrutinising the government. The cross-party group of 106 politicians have written to the corporation warning that dropping the topical issues show would ‘seriously harm the ability of the BBC to […]

Michel Barnier has schooled Brexiteer MP Mark Francois on the Withdrawal Agreement that he and his European Research Group (ERG) colleagues voted for, and told him that him there was no ‘added value’ in leaving the EU. Responding to a letter by the Eurosceptic MP titled a ‘missive from a free country’ on June 29, […]

Despite repeated calls from the EU to join the bloc’s coronavirus vaccine scheme, Boris Johnson is set to reject the invite on the UK’s behalf. Johnson’s refusal to join the scheme to work with the 27 EU countries, which is investing in at least six different potential vaccines, has been met with criticism that Brexit […]

Labour has accused the Tories of delivering a £1.3 billion ‘bung’ to second homeowners and landlords in its coronavirus recovery package. The opposition urged Rishi Sunak to reverse what it said was an ‘unnecessary subsidy’ after it emerged a stamp duty holiday would be extended to the purchasers of holiday homes and buy-to-let properties. As […]

As a New European reader, you probably reckon you keep a close eye on the continent’s news. Test yourself with our quiz… Think you’re on top of what’s been going on across Europe in the past seven days? Take The New European’s tricky quiz and find out just how much of a Europhile you are…

A contract worth £840,000 that was awarded to a research company with links to Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings has raised questions after it was signed off without an open tender for the work. Public First, a small research firm in London, is run by James Frayne – a longtime associate of Cummings who worked […]

As the government launches a multi-pronged assault on Whitehall, the SECRET CIVIL SERVANT gives us the view from the shop floor. If you’re a Whitehall-watcher, you probably heard about the hastily-deleted tweet that appeared on the civil service’s official Twitter account in late May shortly after the extraordinary prime ministerial speech defending the actions of […]

The EU has urged businesses to resuscitate no-deal Brexit preparations regardless of how trade talks with the UK end. Brussels delivered its second stark warning on the state of Brexit talks – but this time it i calling for businesses to prepare for the ‘inevitable change’ that could come out of trade talks. EU chief […]

Leave.EU’s benefactor has turned out to be the least successful UK export to New Zealand since the 2005 Lions, remarks STEVE ANGLESEY. This week marks The New European’s fourth birthday, and the gifts from Brexiteers have already started pouring in. First Nigel Farage trotted off to Tulsa for what had been billed as Donald Trump’s […]

Sainsbury’s, Tesco, M&S, and the Co-op have all pledged to never sell chlorinated chicken or hormone-injected beef from the US in another blow to a post-Brexit deal with Donald Trump. They join Waitrose and Aldi in committing to only sell British food on its shelves. Campaigners fear the UK will have to accept lower food […]

Jacob Rees-Mogg told an SNP MP that his country would have been bankrupted by the coronavirus had it voted to be independent in 2014. Rees-Mogg was responding to a question from the SNP’s Commons leader Tommy Sheppard when he claimed that because Scotland’s economy is ‘dependent on oil price’, it would have been ‘bankrupt’ by […]

The EU has delivered a stark warning over the fate of Brexit talks after ‘informal’ discussions between Michel Barnier and David Frost ended in London without clear progress. The European Commission said there remained ‘significant divergences’ between Brussels and the UK on a post-Brexit trade deal following the meeting in Downing Street. EU chief negotiator […]

Number 10 ‘deliberately and improperly suppressed’ Russia report to avoid embarrassment during the general election campaign, a Lord has claimed. Downing Street has been accused of acting ‘irresponsibly’ in failing to set up the body, which has not sat since before the December election, meaning it has been unable to publish a report into allegations […]

Boris Johnson’s pledge to recruit 50,000 more nurses to the NHS has been questioned after the numbers from the EU fell again. The pledge was a key election promise, and one Johnson continues to claim is a commitment of the government. But data from the Nursing and Midwifery Council shows the number of nurses and […]

Boris Johnson should apologise for criticisms of care home staff over coronavirus deaths, a senior Tory MP has claimed. Caroline Nokes, a former minister who chairs the Commons women and equalities committee, was one of the many left distinctly unimpressed by his remarks. Johnson told reporters earlier this week: ‘We discovered too many care homes […]

Economists from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) have questioned some of the measures announced by Rishi Sunak to deal with the consequences of the coronavirus crisis, and warned tax rises may last decades to pay for it. The IFS said managing the elevated debt from the pandemic would be a task ‘for not just […]

The committee behind a classified report into Russian interference in UK elections is expected to reconvene shortly, but Number 10’s choice of chair could be rejected by MPs. Chris Grayling – the former transport minister – could be rejected as chair of the The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) in a vote by opposition MPs […]

Glen O’Hara suggests the ‘woke wave’ sweeping through society is not as high as many people might think. If you listened to the more panicked accounts coming out of university campuses, you would be forgiven for wondering what on earth is going on. Attacks on free speech; purity tests; the politics of identity; no-platforming; Stalinist […]

Civil servants blasted a Downing Street communications director during a heated conference call after discovering they would lose their jobs in the news. Communication staff in departments across government have expressed outrage at media boss Alex Aiken after finding out they could be made redundant in reports leaked to the media. Aiken – who has […]

The billionaire Brexiteer boss of Ineos Automotive is considering scrapping plans to build a car plant in Wales after plans to acquire a factory in France. The firm, a part of pro-Brexit billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos group, is said to be in talks with Mercedes-Benz over acquiring the German company’s Hambach factory in Moselle, […]

The international trade secretary has warned Boris Johnson that his Brexit border plans could damage the UK’s international credibility and may be subjected to a World Trade Organization challenge, a leaked email has found. Liz Truss wrote a letter to senior cabinet members Rishi Sunak and Michael Gove outlining her ‘key areas of concerns’ about […]

The historian’s praise for the ‘fruitful’ British Empire is wrong – and we must teach the next generation why, says Andrew Adonis. Poor David Starkey, bemoaning his loss of academic honours and book contracts. A ‘heavy price’, he says, for his revolting comments in a recent online discussion in which he said slavery was not […]

The Scottish government has said it would rather take Boris Johnson’s government to court than allow the imports of chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected beef into the country. Westminster plans, according to the Financial Times, to seize the ‘UU internal market’ to create new post-Brexit powers that enforce new standards surrounding food, environment and animal welfare […]