News and Opinion

Brexit should mean Britain also leaves the Eurovision Song Contest, a Brexiteer today told the Commons. Michael Fabricant claimed that he was in ‘dismay’ that Brexit doesn’t include the UK leaving the Eurovision Song Contest. The comments are a u-turn on his comments in 2016 when Fabricant hit out at ‘remoaners’ for ‘fallacious’ comments that […]

We need to lighten up and stop being scared of changing our voting system, says EMMA JONES. It can’t be worse the iniquities of the current one It can be tedious – voting for nothing. I’ve never understood how we can elect a council, on a minority of the popular vote. Up and down the […]

A new poll shows that 71% of Labour supporters would back a new referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU. The survey conducted by BMG Research for the Left Foot Forward website found that a significant majority of supporters would back another vote in the event of Theresa May failing to agree a post-Brexit deal. […]

B​rexit could wreak havoc on our science industry. ANGELA JAMESON fears for the future of Britain’s brightest Dr Graeme Malcolm, the chief executive of Glasgow’s M Squared Lasers, was talking to a group of young entrepreneurs and investors from the tech sector. What he said was top class bragging for geeks: ‘We can now talk […]

Shopping in post-Brexit Britain is set to be very different. Peers have warned shoppers face massive hikes in food bills if the government fails to secure a free trade deal with the European Union. The bleak assessment of the impact of Brexit includes predictions that grocery costs will rise, businesses could go bust and round […]

Northern Ireland might be about to bear the brunt of Brexit but new government figures suggest that the region will be woefully unprepared for it. The New European has learned that of the £3 billion set aside for the monumental task of unwinding the UK’s decades-long EU membership, just £15.2 million – 0.5% of the […]

Week after week it appeared that Brexit was a taboo subject for the leader of the opposition – what’s changed Jeremy? Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn speaks during Prime Minister’s Questions – Credit: PA Wire/PA Images Corbyn used all six of his allotted questions to the prime minster to goad Theresa May over the chaos […]

After the House of Lords’ victory this week Britain might not leave the EU on Friday 29 March 2019 after all – ruining the ‘Great British Brexit Calendar’ that Daily Express readers purchased. On Tuesday evening the House of Lords backed an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill to ensure the date is no longer […]

A Labour peer has offered a government minister a bet that the UK won’t leave the EU on the designated exit day outlined by Theresa May. Labour’s Lord Foulkes of Cumnock said he was prepared to put at least £10 on this outcome and challenged the government’s Brexit minister Lord Callanan to take up the […]

Recalling the Paris riots of May 1968, when France’s fate hung in the balance Peter and Lucia Fieldman in their Paris Apartment, 1968. Picture: Contributed – Credit: Archant I had not been in Paris long when the city started to boil over in May 1968. I had moved to the city in January to work […]

Peers have inflicted another three major defeats on the government asking for more changes to the Brexit Bill – and demanding the UK retains key aspects of the single market. In a ‘stunning victory’ for Remainers the House of Lords backed retaining elements of the single market by continued participation in the European Economic Area. […]

80% of young women did not vote for Brexit. Ahead of the ‘Women Against Brexit’ event in London on Sunday, NINA DE AYALA PARKER explains what is at stake. Women, especially young women, listen up – of the 18-24 year-olds who voted in the EU referendum, eight out of ten of us voted to Remain. […]

A passionate pro-EU speech from a Spanish MEP condemning Brexit and warning of a ‘cold’ world outside of the EU has been shared over 21,000 times. Esteban González Pons told MEPs that Brexit was a ‘selfish’ decision and said that the EU was less about markets and more about ‘the dreams that we share’. The […]

Mandrake challenges the Today presenter John Humphrys to declare the income and hospitality he receives from the Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre Veteran BBC interviewer John Humphrys. Picture: Dominic Lipinski – Credit: PA Wire/PA Images Unlike the politicians that he interrogates on the Today programme, John Humphrys does not have to declare the hospitality or […]

Boris Johnson has sparked a showdown at the top of government over plans for a customs partnership with the European Union. The foreign secretary, and leading Brexiteer, claimed the proposals – backed by Theresa May, the business secretary Greg Clark and business groups – was ‘crazy’ and would create a ‘whole new web of bureaucracy’. […]

As the Cannes film festival opens, RICHARD LUCK explores its unlikely love affair with the American actor The French adore Mickey Rourke. They love him every bit as much as Jerry Lewis. That the talented but resistible comedian is considered on a par with Chaplin and Keaton across the Channel has long caused consternation. Still, […]

I once wrote for Bill Cosby, but turned down a chance to do more. Everyone is saying ‘Bill Cosby was America’s dad’. An easy thing to say. But this is what it means: The great Lenny Bruce used to have a joke about black men on television and in the movies: the noble Sidney Poitiers […]

In a speech to think tank Progress our editor-at-large lays into Jeremy Corbyn and the failures of the Labour Party One or two of you, judging by social media, are looking to me to give you all the answers to our political problems. I admire your trust. Sorry if I disappoint. Yes, I helped Tony […]

John Redwood, the Conservative MP and outspoken Brexiteer, appeared to duck out of a debate with a young Remain activist on national radio on Sunday afternoon. Redwood was invited as a guest on to Andrew Castle’s LBC programme, along with the co-founder of Our Future, Our Choice, Femi Oluwole. In a clip going viral on […]

Recent celebrations of the Belfast Agreement anniversary glossed over the fact that it is simply not working, and the flaws are intrinsic. The recent 20th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement was a bit of a pantomime with those rather out-dated comedians, Clinton, Blair and Senator George Mitchell, playing the leading parts in celebrating its great […]

The origins of the current climate of anti-intellectualism may lie further back than we thought ‘You know, I’ve always wanted to say this… with all the talking we all do, all of these experts, ‘Oh we need an expert’ – the experts are terrible!’ – Donald Trump, April 2016 ‘I think people have had enough […]

The French have banned the practice but should veggie alternatives be allowed to use meaty monikers such as sausages, burgers or bacon rashers? France recently passed an amendment to its Agriculture Bill. It prohibits any product largely based on non-animal ingredients being labelled like a traditional animal product. This essentially bans product names such as […]

Business secretary Greg Clark has suggested extending a transition period on customs with the European Union. The move came as leading Tory Remainers came out in support of the proposed customs partnership. But Brexiteer backbencher and chairman of the hard-line European Research Group Jacob Rees-Mogg said it would be ‘odd’ for Theresa May to back […]

Business Secretary Greg Clark has opened the door to extending a transition period on customs with the EU, after it was revealed Theresa May’s ‘war cabinet’ on Brexit had failed to reach agreement on the matter. Clark said it could be a case of implementing a new customs arrangement ‘as soon as you can do’, […]

Seventy years since Britain exited Palestine, the region offers a clue to our future and much diminished status ‘Global Britain’. To Leavers, it suggests a moment of fantastic opportunity – a teenage backpacker let loose to roam free. To Remainers, it is presumably supposed to say that, despite Brexit, we are not going to cut […]

Claims by Leavers that the Alpine country’s ‘invisible’ borders show how Britain can operate outside the customs union are filled with more holes than a Swiss cheese. As worrying as the cold, hard facts of Brexit are, what should concern us more are the sheer fantasies still being spun by the isolationists as they desperately […]

A show to give London a happy Face When I was starting out on local newspapers, I remember heading off with a sense of morbid fascination to cover the re-enactment of the Battle of Britain by a small Townswomen’s Guild in a village hall. The question that occurred to me as I sat watching this […]

Political debate has become so entrenched and intractable that it has sucked in other, proxy issues It started with Charlie Gard, though of course the point at which the world notices is quite far advanced from the real beginning. The desperately ill baby, at the final stages last July of mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome, was […]

The post-referendum debate is centred around the rapatriation of powers to Westminster and London. Tom Parkin says the regions are being ignored. I live in Evesham, a rural town in Worcestershire that voted by 58% to leave the European Union in June 2016. Evesham’s heritage is agricultural, but its economy less so. Like much of […]

More than 170,000 people have signed up to a protest that coincides with Donald Trump’s visit to the UK on Friday July 13th. The event – being organised by Owen Jones and the Stop Trump Coalition – is expected to be held in London on the day of the US President’s visit with organisers anticipating […]

The love-in between rap star Kanye West and Donald Trump may seem a truly bizarre pairing, but it may just be another way for a pair of outsiders to stay relevant Is Yeezy feeling queasy? Or has the rap iconoclast lost his mojo? Like a perverse mutation of a Thought for the Day, these are […]

While elements of the British left struggle with the spectre of anti-Semitism, France is facing its own virulent problems. It was the second such murder to rock the nation in a year – and the details were nothing if not shocking. Mireille Knoll, an 85-year-old grandmother, was stabbed 11 times in her east Paris apartment […]