News and Opinion

Robert Elms lived in Barcelona in the 1980s as it emerged from Franco’s long shadow. Here, in a love letter to the Catalan capital in the wake of Europe’s latest terrorist atrocity, he tells the story of a unique city. For me Barcelona is the greatest European city of them all. It isn’t the greatest […]

MP Clive Lewis has told The New European podcast he believes a Hard Brexit will now be avoided due to Labour’s strong general election performance. He said the cliff-edge Brexit will now be stopped and the grassroots must ‘organise’ to halt Brexit altogether. The former front bencher – who quit over Jeremy Corbyn’s three-line whip […]

Labour cannot halt Brexit, says Abi Wilkinson, instead it is down to a grassroots movement to swing opinion and then the politicians will follow. Here are several things I believe are true. First of all, that Brexit is going to be an unmitigated disaster with few – if any – silver linings. Secondly, that the […]

Leaving the EU is not an inherently humorous topic but as the saying goes ‘if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry’. Here John Nicholson rounds up some of the best Brexit gags from Edinburgh Fringe. Dane Baptiste – Credit: Archant Brexit. Brexit. Brexit. It’s been a word that has been on almost everyone’s lips this month […]

‘We want tighter borders’ cried some in the media only to moan when Brits had to queue at passport control. Here Liz Gerard examines yet more media hypocrisy. They gather outside the shed and chat in the sunshine, dogs tugging on their leads. The chinos and capri pants are gently pressed, the loafers are unfeasibly […]

By any normal standards the EU would be considered a huge success and now cross-party pro-European voices must come together to save it. For 43 years until 2016, the majority of voters, and a larger majority of political and other leaders, regarded it as obvious that Britain’s interests lie in developing closer links with our […]

The European Union’s starry logo glistens in the sun on a plaque by a roundabout just outside Longford, a market town about 80 miles from Dublin in the Irish Midlands. Before the part-EU-funded bypass, Longford was choked in traffic. Now signs warn visitors to drive on the left in four languages – English, Gaelic, German […]

Plenty of eyebrows were raised when former Chancellor George Osborne was handed the role as Editor of London’s Evening Standard. But the editorial pages of the Standard – which remains influential – have become a must-read barrage of vicious attacks on Britain’s Brexit-obsessed ministers. And this week on the Today programme he launched another assault: […]

Another day, another death, another chance to reflect with old Fleet Street colleagues that ‘we only ever seem to meet up at funerals’. Another day, another death, another chance to reflect with old Fleet Street colleagues that ‘we only ever seem to meet up at funerals’. This is as much a sign of ageing as […]

We pick the worst Brexiteers of the week Paul Nuttall Little has been heard of the Nobel Prize-winning Olympic 100m champion since his resignation as UKIP leader, but it’s now emerged that during the election campaign he failed in an attempt to rebrand his party ‘The Patriotic Alliance’. That, of course, was the name former […]

Steve Bannon’s sacking has been cheered by many who saw him at an alt-right puppet master. But could he been even more dangerous outside the White House? Donald Trump once told me he rarely read books and much preferred perusing balance sheets. So, it’s highly unlikely he’s read Machiavelli’s The Prince or any Edmund Burke, […]

Stephen Sondheim, more than any other contemporary composer, is credited with raising the musical to new levels of complexity and sophistication. But even today, his focus on form and content, rather than building shows around a succession of set-piece, take-away hit songs divides opinion. The generalised perception of him as the thinking-person’s composer, disrupting a […]

Labour has traditionally not stood candidates in Northern Ireland. But on the back of the Tory-DUP deal that might be about to change Conversations about politics in Northern Ireland are now dominated by the Tory-DUP deal. With all but one constituency in Northern Ireland represented by either the DUP or Sinn Fein, it should be […]

The Government’s transitional customs proposals are a start – but it will be far from plain sailing for business So Philip Hammond has won the argument with Brexiteers and hard has been replaced by soft – at least as far as customs arrangements go. Transition is the order of the day as the cabinet scrambles […]

Brexit-supporting politicians have issued their own threats indicating that if the EU doesn’t like what they’re proposing they can lump it. We are used to political language being robust – take unpopular, big-mouthed, unapologetic Donald Trump, who since his election at the end of last year has appalled and angered much of the world with […]

A new study explores how and why the favoured charitable causes of Leave and Remain voters differ. The great British public are a charitable bunch. But people do not give out their hard-earned cash equally, and they prefer certain charities. A new study I led suggests that a person’s political views and attitudes towards their […]

A new film, Detroit, depicts the deadly five days in the combustible city over the summer of 1967 when disorder saw the National Guard sent in and dozens left dead. Residents of the riot-torn area, some holding empty cardboard boxes, line up outside building where food and clothing is being distributed. – Credit: Bettmann Archive […]

The decline of democracy in Hungary is an ominous sign for Europe. When Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission met Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Riga in May 2015, he greeted him by saying ‘hello dictator’. Juncker’s words were perhaps an ironic response to Orbán’s earlier statement that he wants to ‘build an […]

Social media went into overdrive when a BBC kids’ programme included a black centurion. What have the Romans ever done for us? They certainly gave us plenty to talk about it would seem. Centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the Germanic chieftain Odovacar in 476CE, we’re still working out just how […]

Rubens got in among our basic desires and our raw physicality and he gave them form Rubens – La Adoration de los Reyes – Adoration of the Magi, 1610 by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) in the Prado in Madrid. – Credit: ©TopFoto.co.uk Munich’s art gallery, the Alte Pinakothek, when it was designed in the 1820s, […]

It’s not who you are underneath it’s what you do that defines you When a character has been around as long as Batman (78 years, Batfact fans) it’s interesting to examine the differences, both broad and subtle, between the various iterations – both in print and especially, on screen – of the Caped Crusader’s adventures. […]

Which are the best comedy shows to see at Edinburgh Fringe? Sean Kelly – Sold Your Way – Underbelly Med Quarter – 18.55 **** Yes him, the bald auctioneer dude from Storage Hunters. I’m not sure how long he’s been doing stand-up but it’s an environment he seems very at ease in. He does the […]

Donald Trump’s silence over the neo-Nazi’s in Charlottesville was deafening. But did he fail to speak out sooner because the only friends he has left are on the far right? If the Russian Connection doesn’t get him first, Saturday August 14, 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia, is the date and place that may well have decreed […]

When Brexit-backing millionaire Arron Banks described homosexuality as a ‘lifestyle choice’ Twitter reacted with horror. Here’s why Britain must not return to the dark days of Section 28 When the self-proclaimed ‘bad boy of Brexit’ Arron Banks tweeted that homosexuality was a ‘lifestyle choice’ the shadow or long-gone dark days re-emerged. We’ve actually come a […]

Brexiteers have deluded themselves with a belief in the native pluck of the British which will eventually win the day. Our Brexit Negotiators just can’t stop telling us that if we only keep on chanting ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’ for long enough, the EU will eventually crack. Why will it crack? […]

On the ground in a divided United States of America past battle lines are being redrawn. The murder of a woman by a neo-Nazi in Charlottesville, Virginia, has exposed further divisions in this deeply divided country. But the parameters exposed by this incident, which saw dozens injured and two State troopers killed following a helicopter […]

Former US vice president talks Trump, Brexit and climate change denial. Thanks mainly to the success of the Putin-Trump-social media anti-truth triumvirate, I have no way of knowing if there is any veracity in the story that President Trump has a special Fox News ‘nice about POTUS, nasty about his enemies’ file prepared every day. […]

If you locked Fox and Hammond in a room which of the two would you expect to emerge as the other one’s pigskin bag? This week’s big news so far is not that the US and North Korea are still at peace at the time of writing. Nor even that Philip Hammond and Liam Fox, […]

August is known as the silly season. It should come as no surprise that the term came into being in reference to the Conservative Party. Not quite the Tory Party we know today, but its beginnings in the tumultuous time of Queen Victoria’s reign in the 1850s and 1860s. This was the era of the […]

Steve Anglesey picks out the worst Brexiteers of the week Daniel Hannan The mystifyingly-nicknamed Brain Of Brexit popped up on a right-wing American website to declare Britain was hungry for the great taste of modified meat. ‘I eat steak whenever I’m in the United States,’ wrote Desperate Dan. ‘Your steaks are bigger, juicier, and more […]

Another week, another great issue packed with news, Brexit analysis and brilliant features on art, culture, travel and food. The New European is on sale in all good newsagents in the UK and Republic of Ireland. Use our store locator tool to find your nearest copy. You can also read The New European on your […]

A recent poll by well-regarded academics suggested the vast majority of the British public now backed an extreme form of Brexit. Here’s why that is not the case. The recent Oxford University and London School of Economics poll of 20,000 people supposedly proved that the public are now 70% behind Hard Brexit. You really cannot […]