News and Opinion

The government’s hopes of achieving world-class animal welfare standards will “evaporate” unless they are written into law as Britain leaves the EU, a new report has warned. Compassion in World Farming said the UK would come under intense pressure to accept lower standards once its food production industry was removed from EU structures which currently […]

The Tories’ increasingly vicious civil war has continued with a government Brexiteer hitting out at business secretary Greg Clark over his please to listen to business. Brexit minister Steve Baker insisted Britain “must” leave the EU’s internal market as ministers jockey for position ahead of a crunch Cabinet summit at Chequers next week. His comments […]

The Conservative leader in the National Assembly for Wales has quit the post after seven years following a spat over the future for Welsh jobs after Brexit. Andrew RT Davies said in a statement that he had tendered his resignation “with deep regret” following a meeting of all Conservative Assembly Members (AMs) this morning. Prime […]

Jacob Rees-Mogg has been accused of a “pathetic little stunt” over a visit to the Irish border with a TV news crew – after failing to go on two trips with the Brexit committee he sits on. The leader of the hardline Tory European Research Group has today travelled to the border with Sky News. […]

With another chaotic week for the cabinet unravelling, this should have been like taking candy from a baby for Jeremy Corbyn – but once again he flattered to deceive. Theresa May speaks during Prime Minister’s Questions Photo: PA – Credit: PA Wire/PA Images Don’t get me wrong, he has certainly had worse outings at the […]

Britain’s “divorce bill” from the EU could cost billions of pounds more than the government has acknowledged while its promised “Brexit dividend” will take years to materialise, MPs have warned. The Commons Public Accounts Committee said there was a “risk” that the final settlement could exceed the Treasury’s “narrow” estimate of £35bn to £39bn. It […]

Boris Johnson has poured cold water on England’s World Cup chances, telling fans “not to let their hopes get away with them”. The foreign secretary and Brexiteer-in-chief was criticised after downplaying Gareth Southgate’s side’s chances following their record 6-1 win over Panama at the weekend. Mr Johnson, already facing attacks over his no-show at the […]

Major job losses will occur if the government allows service industries to “fall off a cliff edge” after Brexit, London mayor Sadiq Khan has told MPs. Mr Khan called for much greater emphasis to be put on the sector during withdrawal negotiations with Brussels as services account for 40% of UK exports to the EU […]

Alastair Campbell upset both the BBC and Nigel Farage waving a copy of The New European on one of its major political programmes. Farage and Campbell were joined on the Daily Politics by evicted Love Island contestant Hayley Hughes, who appeared in the news last week for her confusion over the Brexit process. She was […]

Why are so many immune to the impending disaster facing us? Geroge Orwell would recognise the answer. George Orwell wrote in The Prevention Of Literature that ‘freedom of the press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticize and oppose’. And: ‘In the past… the idea of rebellion and the idea of […]

Morrissey’s recent outbursts have been hard to defend. But here Smiths diehard, and Remainer, GAVIN FEARNLEY attempts to do just that Morrissey performing at Finsbury Park in 1992 Photo: Brian Rasic/Getty Images – Credit: Getty Images ‘You are sleeping, you do not want to believe,’ drones the voice of parapsychologist Dr Gephardt Frye on Rubber […]

He was the voice of the shy youth who left the party early, went home alone and cried. But of late Morrissey’s once ​rapier rhetoric has acquired a darker hue, superfan NICHOLAS BARRETT investigates The Smiths performing live on The Tube Photo: Getty /Pete Cronin/Redferns – Credit: Redferns My adolescence was Smiths upon Smiths upon […]

Bavarian resident IAN WALKER on how the normally serene state is squaring up to Merkel In the past, Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU) has tended to back down and know its place when its political interests have come up against those of wider Germany. This isn’t surprising. The Bavarians are quite happy to know their […]

Remainers have swamped London in their tens of thousands to demand: ‘Give us a say in Brexit.’ Vince Cable MP, Pro-EU campaigner Gina Miller, Tony Robinson and Caroline Lucas MP join with crowds taking part in the People’s Vote march for a second EU referendum at Trafalgar Square in central London. Photoi: PA – Credit: […]

Tens of thousands of pro-EU demonstrators are massing in London to continue the fight against Brexit. Two years on from the referendum result, organisers are predicting the biggest march yet demanding a People’s Vote on the final Brexit deal. As many as 100,000 people are expected to mass in Pall Mall before marching on parliament. […]

In his latest essay on the desperate state of politics, AC GRAYLING, the country’s leading philosopher, argues it won’t be enough to just halt Brexit. We need to stop Britain being hijacked again Brexit can be stopped. I think with ever-increasing confidence that it will be, because every week its defeaters are growing in number, […]

A quick puzzle for you and your readers… the following quote belongs to who? ‘Any new law needs to be debated, We don’t have legislation by decree – that is what they have in Putin’s Russia or Erdogan’s Turkey. ‘What is our defence against legislation by decree? It is our parliament and the right of […]

Theresa May plainly took notice of Boris Johnson’s desire to see what Brexit would look like if it was negotiated by Donald Trump. In the last few days she has moved from hapless jargon-spouting bureaucrat to brazen liar. She has lied to Dominic Grieve and the rebels and lied that extra money for the NHS […]

The crisis in British politics is the result of an obsession with leaders trying to invoke an imaginary ‘people’, says ZOE WILLIAMS. It is high time they gave up I interviewed the cultural theorist Stuart Hall when the kidney disease that would kill him was already well advanced, so naturally everything he said has a […]

Thousands of anti-Brexit campaigners are marching on Westminster on the second anniversary of the EU referendum calling on a people’s vote on the final Brexit deal. Why are we marching for a People’s Vote? Organisers say that new facts have come to light about the costs and complexity of Brexit that no one could have […]

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…

STEVE ANGLESEY picks the losers and the losers – because there are no winners – from another week on Planet Brexit JACOB REES-MOGG Having called the Royal Mail ‘silly and bureaucratic’ for banning its van drivers from displaying England flags on their vehicles during the World Cup, man-of-the-people Jake told listeners of his podcast,’I will […]

This week’s episode of The New European podcast has landed. Richard Porritt, Steve Anglesey and Geri Scott return and raise a glass to 100 issues of The New European. As well as the usual round-up of the news (recorded on the 1430 Norwich to London Liverpool Street train) the team play Brexit bingo with Alastair […]

In retrospect, a cat gave us all the warning we should have needed. At the Conservative Party Conference in 2011, Theresa May – the woman who as party chair had years before warned the Tories to ditch their ‘nasty party’ image – stood up as home secretary and gave a speech in support of scrapping […]

Editor-at-Large ALASTAIR CAMPBELL states politics and media have become a ‘madhouse’ To Birmingham, and a conference of around 450 headteachers and other school leaders, where I was the after dinner turn. Partly for my own amusement, and to test the waters of opinion, I often forego the standard late night fare, and instead get the […]

Liberal Democrat leader VINCE CABLE says let’s march to end this chaotic journey Demonstrators at a Brexit protest Credit: Jane Barlow/ PA – Credit: PA Wire/PA Images Tens of thousands of people will march on parliament this Saturday calling for a People’s Vote on any Brexit deal. I will be among them, as will Green […]

MICHAEL WHITE on May’s supposed ‘Brexit Dividend’ – and an alternative plan to revive and sustain the NHS I’ve been thinking more than usually about the NHS since my operation. Yes, fine, thanks for asking, it was only a small one. But it was a slightly big deal for me, the first time I’d been […]

With only nine months left before our EU exit, we have no coherent government proposal for Brexit which even meets Theresa May’s own commitments. With only nine months left before our EU exit, we have no coherent government proposal for Brexit which even meets Theresa May’s own commitments. At the same time, there must be […]

With blatant lies being told about the financial cost of leaving the EU, Angela Jameson singles out someone not afraid to tell it like it is I can’t think that many people would name an economist as a hero but after two years in a post-Brexit referendum wilderness, Paul Johnson, director of the Institute of […]

Every week, for 100 weeks now, The New European have been energetically campaigning against Brexit – the only newspaper in the UK to do this consistently says Editor, MATT KELLY You don’t read The New European. You step into it like a hot bath*. Every week, for 100 weeks now, we’ve been energetically campaigning against […]

TIM WALKER on how Boris Becker wants justice for Gottfried von Cramm, Katya Banks’ property empire, an awkward encounter with Daniel Hannan and Jeremy Corbyn’s horror of the EU flag. Protesters demand action on Brexit from Jeremy Corbyn – Credit: Archant Boris Becker – the German former world No 1 professional tennis player – has […]

The European Commission is making plans which could see British citizens requiring a visa to enter the EU after Brexit, it has emerged. A document titled ‘Pending and planned legislative proposals for the purposes of Brexit preparedness’, seen by the website Politico, has reportedly been presented to MEPs. The site said it was presented by […]