Opinion

Examining the roles of the three Brexiteers at the heart of the government’s Brexit negotiations Shadow defence secretary Liam Fox – Credit: PA Archive/PA Images Upon becoming prime minister in July 2016, Theresa May created two new cabinet positions – vastly weakening a third in the process – splitting theoretical responsibility for Brexit among a […]

Theresa May has once again engaged her favourite tactic when it comes to quitting the European Union – the policy of putting things off. This is head-in-the-sand politics and, although it has saved her job thus far, the prime minister is heading for an almighty fall. By delaying any decision on a customs partnership with […]

Jeremy Corbyn covered lots of topics – clips for social media in mind – but again failed to make anything really stick. Theresa May speaks during Prime Minister’s Questions Photo: PA – Credit: PA Wire/PA Images The Labour leader was quick out of the blocks asking ‘did the prime minister feel the slightest pang of […]

The fallout from the government’s hostile environment immigration policy gets darker by the day. Now we are told in a report produced by a coalition of women’s groups that vulnerable women are so afraid for being kicked out of the UK they are not reporting violent and sexual abuse to the police. This is Great […]

Losing Amber Rudd from the Brexit war cabinet is a blow to the Remain cause. She was perhaps the only truly sensible voice on Brexit that carried real weight around the cabinet table aside from the chancellor. Sajid Javid campaigned for Remain but he is unlikely to square up to the Brexiteers inside government in […]

The EU and UN are held together by compromises and fudges; so some of their critics do have a point. But JAMES BALL asks; does that mean Britain can back out of the mess? If you’re trying to defend internationalism – the idea countries should work together, look outwards and not inwards, and build closer […]

Why didn’t the BBC report the House of Lords’ victory over the Customs Union on their morning news, asks David Perrin. In the time I spent watching and listening to the BBC Breakfast programme on the morning of April 19, there was no mention of the very important amendment victory the Lords concerning remaining in […]

A survey of EU companies with a British base reveals 46% will be reducing UK capacity, explains Magdalena Williams. The list of industries either moving, considering a move, reducing capacity or shutting up shop altogether because of Brexit uncertainty and rising costs due to the weak pound, now stands at: Airlines, car manufacturers (2.7 million […]

In this week’s column, Mitch Benn explores who should be held accountable for the Windrush scandal. One of my favourite things about this job is that it’s never really been specified to me precisely what this job is. I know that I attracted the attention of the good folk here at New European Towers soon […]

A Brexiteer writes to The New European with a request… I, who voted Leave, read TNE avidly every week, not as Alastair Campbell said to ‘know thine enemy’ but rather because your other cultural and political articles are generally excellent and reflective of the broad cultural bond we have with Europe, and long may these […]

If Brexit happens next March it won’t be the end – just the ‘end of the beginning’, explains Will Goble. The best analogy I’ve yet heard about the lunacy of Brexit is from an anonymous poster in the comments section of an online newspaper. It goes something like this: A man is driving at speed […]

Right-wing Tories will be furious, Boris Johnson and Liam Fox will resign, and we’ll stay close to Europe. It’s a no-brainer isn’t it? With David ‘Two Brains’ Willetts seeking to persuade the government to pursue a less isolationist post-Brexit policy, the time is surely ripe for the less cerebrally-endowed politician – Lord Lawson, Theresa May […]

The debate on the customs union is a golden opportunity for MPs to discuss, sensibly, the impact quitting will have on Britain. This should be viewed as a chance to convince wavering Tories to be brave when the vote really matters next month – it is time for members to realise sometimes they must put […]

As an EU national who has resided in UK for the past eight years, I will be using the ballot box in May to articulate my discontent with Brexit. Although local elections concern local matters, as an EU national I only have the local elections at my disposal to signal my disagreement with the Conservative […]

Alastair Campbell (TNE #90) reminds us of just how extraordinary it is that someone so clearly unsuited to holding public office as Boris Johnson has managed to gain such a strong foothold in politics. Gary Neville summed it up for me when, following yet another bit of foot-in-mouth idiocy as the foreign secretary suggested we […]

Both sides of Brexit think the BBC is biased towards the other side, as Chris Grey’s excellent piece points out. This may indicate that the Beeb is doing the right thing. So let’s just cut to the chase and stop hammering the BBC for showing or not showing any partiality during the referendum debate. What […]

For EU citizens who had been offered the right to remain in the UK the Government has failed to ‘take back control’, explains Paul Stein. In June 2017 TNE printed my letter responding to Theresa May’s ‘fair and generous offer’ to EU citizens living in the UK. Given that my wife entered the UK in […]

The worry caused to the Windrush kids shames us all. These Commonwealth citizens answered Britain’s plea for help and did their bit to rebuild after the devastation of the Second World War. And many of them, when they arrived in 1948, were fresh from those blood-soaked battlefields where they had served bravely against the Axis […]

Many Remainers believe a second referendum will be the silver bullet that solves everything by sending the issue of Brexit back into the abyss. But unless we can convince a good percentage of the disenfranchised working class who voted Leave, a second vote could stoke up far greater problems than we have now. We would […]

The idea of a new centre party is tempting for Remain voters left feeling disenfranchised by the attitudes of the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition. I believe it could succeed despite our electoral system. I have been voting for nearly 40 years and can tell you that even in the late 1970s […]

As a long-standing centre-right Tory voter for more than 60 years, I am appalled by the extremist slide which has moved the party too far to the right for my taste. In fact, it has become so right wing that it is similar to the Republican Party in the US, something which is contrary to […]

Why those attacking the BBC are picking the wrong target. For almost two and a half thousand years, political leaders have been warned against the dangers of shooting the messenger, and for much of that time the message has gone unheeded. Such is the risk for frustrated Brexit opponents focused on the BBC as a […]

The Daily Mail’s theatre critic has been accused of racism in his review of a play, says BONNIE GREER. He certainly doesn’t understand theatre Twitter has just experienced a first: a theatre critic set it ablaze. That milestone belongs to the Daily Mail’s parliamentary sketch-writer by day and theatre reviewer by night, Quentin Letts. He […]

Barry Gardiner’s comments were arguably worse than Owen Smith’s, but he kept his job. Why? Two shadow cabinet ministers. One, Owen Smith, called for a referendum on the final Brexit deal – admittedly in a break with Labour policy – and was swiftly sacked by leader Jeremy Corbyn. This in spite of the fact that […]

Anette Schweizer argues that Remain needs to put a positive spin on freedom of movement to win the argument… I moved to the UK from Germany five years ago and live in a small market town in the East Midlands, in an average, middle-classy residential area. I love talking to all sorts of people from […]

David Miliband’s latest Brexit intervention makes perfect sense – let’s hope people are listening. At the end of a week when some in the centre have dared to dream about a return for the best Labour leader the party never had, Miliband has warned that Brexit could land Britain in real danger. And he is […]

Thomas Harris encourages The New European readers to ensure their friends and family are all registered to vote in the local elections… Theresa May asked the electorate last year to endorse her hard Brexit posturing. It delivered no such endorsement but she has carried with it on regardless. May’s ministers have continued to ‘negotiate’ with […]

Knowing what we know now, how do we respond to Wagner and Woody? Changing cultural attitudes are forcing this question on all of us, says Bonnie Greer Walking through Tate Modern’s once-in-a lifetime exhibition, Picasso 1932 – Love, Fame, Tragedy, it is impossible not to think of the relationship of the genius and his muse. […]

So. Yeah. Easter. Bit of a weird one. For all that Easter is in many ways the direct counterpart festival to Christmas, the yin to Yuletide’s yang, as it were, it’s always been very much the junior partner. It’s just not as big a deal, for all that in theological terms the two festivals ‘bookend’ […]

The EU has more democratic checks than any other international structure we belong to. EU legislation requires approval both of those directly elected MEPs and of the Council, composed of national ministers accountable to national parliaments. The EU’s central administration, the Commission is headed by a team of Commissioners, each one nominated by the Prime […]

Tens of thousands of us march against Brexit in Leeds, Edinburgh, Brighton, Oxford and the rest making it onto the national news agenda. A handful of Brexiteers throw dead fish off a boat and the coverage is everywhere. This will shock some TNE readers but it isn’t an example of mainstream media bias against Brexit. […]

‘Exposure of Cambridge Analytica’s links with Vote Leave has obviously touched a raw nerve’ claims Anthony West. By crying foul at the Observer and Channel 4 and also haranguing journalist Carole Cadwalladr in the process, all Isabel Oakeshott did on the Marr show was to betray her anxiety that something was obviously amiss as far […]