News and Opinion

TIM WALKER reviews Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre’s production of ‘As You Like It’. Seldom, if ever, can the fates have conspired against a first night in quite the way they did for As You Like It at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre last week. No one could have known when they scheduled it […]

Ryanair has warned about the danger of a Hard Brexit, saying that the risk of one was being “underestimated” The airline has warned UK shareholders they may have to lose their voting rights in the event of a Brexit which sees the country crashing out of the EU without a deal next March. Ryanair said: […]

Theresa May’s divided cabinet has headed north in a bid to come together over her Brexit strategy. Brexit secretary Dominic Raab has admitted that even after the resignations of David Davis and Boris Johnson in the wake of the Chequers proposal there remains tension over the plan. He said he still needs to persuade some […]

Jacob Rees-Mogg has suggested it could take half a century for Britain to reap any rewards from Brexit. 'You don't seem to be prepared to put your own future on the line when you're prepared to put everybody else's futures on the line.' This is what happened when we asked leading Brexiteer Jacob Rees Mogg […]

The Tories’ Brexit ‘chaos’ is as big a threat to the future of the UK as the SNP, a Labour MP has warned. The Scottish Labour MP Ian Murray has warned a hard Brexit would spark an existential crisis for the union and could see Scotland leaving the UK. He believes a worst-case scenario would […]

PETER MILLAR reports from the region which could yet trigger Merkel’s downfall We were standing in Neuhauser Strasse, Munich’s busiest shopping street, awash as always with busy locals and the now commonplace smattering of migrants, mostly from Syria and the Miiddle East. ‘Look at that,’ said Dieter, my Berlin friend. ‘I’ve never understood why they […]

As part of his personal campaign to keep Britain inside the EU, the philosopher and academic AC Grayling has sent a letter to all MPs, highlighting two of the central fallacies of Brexit. We reproduce it here Dear MP, I write to alert you to two highly significant considerations which have not figured in the […]

A petition of members of left-wing pressure group Momentum is nearing a key milestone. Almost 4,000 members of the group – formed to back Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership bid and now one of the most powerful voices within the Labour party – have now backed a policy change to support a People’s Vote on the final […]

New Brexit secretary Dominic Raab has admitted the cabinet remains divided over the prime minister’s Chequers plan. Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson and Brexit chief David Davis walked out of government in response to the plan which outlines the UK’s negotiating strategy with the European Union. Now Raab has admitted he is still trying to […]

The German chancellor has become an anachronism from a bygone Europe, writes Paul Knott. Exactly how or when the end might come remains unclear. Yet the growing challenges to German chancellor Angela Merkel’s authority suggest that her 13 years in office are fast drawing to a close. During that period, she has successfully consolidated Germany’s […]

PETER TRUDGILL divides up the continent according to word different languages use to describe the smelly stuff The distribution of words meaning ‘cheese’ in different European languages has an interesting geographical pattern. These words fall into four rather clearly separate zones. In the northern zone, the North Germanic languages have a word for cheese which […]

Does the modern game make it even more difficult than ever for players to come out? Jason Solomons writes about a timely film that puts a sport on the spot Of the 736 players registered as team members in Russia for the recent World Cup, how many were gay? Statistically, the likelihood is quite a […]

Next in the series looking at great European lives, Charlie Connelly looks at the life of Bert Trautmann. There were 17 minutes left of the 1956 FA Cup final when Birmingham City outside-left Alex Govan punted a high ball towards the edge of the Manchester City penalty area. Centre forward Eddy Brown headed the ball […]

It’s a weird world where football provides an escape from the toxic masculinity of politics. But that’s where we are, says CAROLINE CRIADO PEREZ You wouldn’t catch Gareth Southgate embroiled in a sex pest text scandal. I highly doubt Southgate even has a Snapchat account (bless him), but if he did, he certainly wouldn’t be […]

Don’t let the Brexit vandals take control of our politics, writes Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. When Trump was in town, Michael Fabricant, the Tory MP for Lichfield, retweeted a gross image of London mayor Sadiq Khan’s head on an inflatable balloon, being mounted by a pig. Khan is a Muslim. For Muslims, pigs are unclean and taboo. […]

Donald Trump’s visit to the UK showed Brexit is an existential question, as well as a political one, writes Bonnie Greer. The problem for the press now is in covering empty gestures. Donald Trump has reduced the presidency of the United States to a series of campaign slogans, ‘promises kept’ to his base, and grandeur. […]

There is a lot to support in Justine Greening’s idea for a three-option People’s Vote but, as Christopher Wylie so memorably put it, Brexit is a crime scene. The side which won by 4% overspent by 10%. Three senior people in the Vote Leave, Leave.EU and BeLeave campaigns have been referred to the police. There […]

We should look to the England football team at the World Cup for some life advice, says Martin Deighton. We quite rightly persist in our efforts to win football’s World Cup and no-one suggests giving up because we have not succeeded since 1966. Making changes to the structure, the rules and the nature of the […]

Piers Morgan is mistaken, we’re not jealous about his interview with Donald Trump, it’s cozying up with the president which worries us, writes Mitch Benn. OK; I’m going to do something now which, I suspect, many of you may not entirely approve of. I’m going to give Piers Morgan the benefit of the doubt. In […]

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator effectively cut down Theresa May’s proposals for customs arrangements today, suggesting they were not workable. Speaking after briefing ministers from the 27 remaining EU states in Brussels, Michel Barnier said the European Commission did not understand parts of the plan agreed by the Cabinet earlier this month at Chequers and […]

Would a People’s Vote actually be in the interests of Brexiteers as well? Former UKIP official GAWAIN TOWLER on an intriguing school of thought. There is a niche school of thought out there that another UK referendum on membership of the EU would be in the interests not just of Remainers – for obvious reasons […]

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…

Theresa May has been told to ‘take control of the situation’ in Northern Ireland amid claims the country is being damaged by ‘shenanigans’ in Westminster. As the prime minister delivered a keynote speech in Belfast, Ulster Unionist Party leader Robin Swann heaped pressure on May telling her to get a grip of the border issue. […]

Paul Connew looks at whether Donald Trump fatally wounded his presidency after his meeting with Vladimir Putin. The New York Daily News front page said it all. Under the headline ‘Open Treason’, a cartoon showed Donald Trump shooting Uncle Sam in the head while a bare-chested Vladimir Putin looked on triumphantly. It was, of course, […]

Michael White takes a look at the chaos derailing the government and the less than helpful visit of Donald Trump. When I awoke to bright sunshine (again) on Monday I wondered which upcoming headline would most likely darken my day by tea time. Would it be Donald Trump’s Helsinki love-in with Vladimir Putin? Or Boris […]

STEVE ANGLESEY rounds up the losers and the losers (because there are no winners) of another crazy seven days on Planet Brexit 10. JO MARNEY Former UKIP leader Henry Bolton’s girlfriend told her Twitter followers: ‘You don’t need an invasion of immigrants to be able to enjoy a nice curry. There’s a difference between losing […]

In another Deconstructed, James Ball looks at how the European Research Group is exploiting the dark arts of the US. It has become common to hear warnings that US-style politics – where a far-right fringe has captured the country and so come to dominate public life – is coming to the UK. Some say such […]

Theresa May’s spineless capitulation to the European Research Group moves us closer to the no-deal exit of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s sepia-tinted dreams. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The toxic shock of austerity led us into Brexit and arguably only the toxic shock of becoming a third-rate dumping-ground country will lead us out of it. […]

The New European must continue after Brexit is rejected to provide news about the EU neglected by our mainstream media and, also, to campaign to reform our archaic parliament and voting system. Take the processes established by our parliament pre-referendum to scrutinise EU legislation. They were subject to only minor reforms despite the various changes […]

The prime minister’s first visit to the Irish border 755 days after the Brexit referendum is too little too late, Sinn Fein has said. Party vice-president Michelle O’Neill said Mrs May would learn about the “catastrophic implications” of Brexit and hear the “fear and trepidation” of locals living and working near what is to become […]

In some ways Boris Johnson was right, we are trying to polish a turd, writes Peter Roberts. Who knows what will happen over the next days and weeks, but surely this must now be clear. 1) There’s no form of Brexit that will benefit the nation. We really are polishing poo; 2) The national interest […]

Tim Walker’s diary focuses on Gina Miller being ‘outnumbered’ on Question Time, the woes of Leave.EU, Chuka Umunna on the idea of a black PM, and John Redwood and Frank Field plotting in a lift Dimbleby starves Gina of airtime The last Question Time before the summer break proved to be a lot more entertaining […]