News and Opinion

GAVIN ESLER unearthed enough Leave lies to fill a book.. So he’s written one. I’m a recovering politician. After four weeks campaigning in the European elections as an anti-Brexit candidate for Change UK in London (I didn’t win), one encounter sticks in my mind. It was near Oxford Street. I was that annoying person handing […]

While everyone is preoccupied with the Tory leadership election, there is a quieter but extremely consequential contest about to take place. While everyone is preoccupied with the Tory leadership election, the outcome of which is basically already known, there is a quieter but extremely consequential contest about to take place – the Brecon and Radnorshire […]

Donald Tusk has struck back against ‘authoritarianism, personality cults, and the rule of oligarchs’, after Vladimir Putin declared liberalism ‘obsolete’. The European Council president spoke out after the Russian president declared the death of the “liberal idea” in an interview with the Financial Times. “The global stage cannot become an arena where the stronger will […]

STEVE ANGLESEY takes a look at the worst Brexiteers making this week’s headlines. THE JACOBITE They’re steaming in Scotland after Nigel Farage’s EFDD group in the EU parliament used the celebrated train’s image on the cover of a leaflet titled “What Scotland Really Thinks About the EU”. The Jacobite is the model for the Hogwarts […]

Fleet Street veteran Liz Gerard on why the broadsheet’s uncritical coverage of its star writer and Tory leadership frontrunner is a failure of the press “Boris: I won’t bottle Brexit,” proclaimed the Daily Telegraph splash. For the third successive Monday, the Tory favourite had given the paper double value with both a column and the […]

As Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson go head-to-head in the latest Conservative party leadership hustings in Exeter – our reporters are behind-the-scenes to find out what the party faithful think.

The managing director of Iceland Foods Group slammed the ‘paralysis’ Brexit is causing in parliament, in a no-nonsense argument on Question Time for a People’s Vote. During the show in Halifax, where Leave won by a slim majority, Richard Walker was applauded for his remarks on how Brexit is holding up government action on everything […]

ANDREW ADONIS on why hard Brexit would be a prelude to a Thatcherite reshaping of Britain. Now the Johnson submarine has surfaced, the critical issue isn’t his midnight shouting matches but his growing love affair with Nigel Farage. It is increasingly clear that a ‘no-deal, no vote’ pact is evolving between them. For all his […]

The favourite to be our next prime minister has links to a motley crew of chancers, losers and far-right agitators, says JAMES BALL The overwhelming favourite to be the UK’s prime minister by the end of July is a political Janus, presented by his supporters as two entirely different characters depending upon who they’re talking […]

Ahead of her speech at the Let Us Be Heard rally in Cheltenham, For our Future’s Sake supporter HILLARY GYEBI-ABABIO explains why the country needs to unite in favour of a People’s Vote. What a time to be alive. That’s what I thought in 2016, knowing I was about to turn 18 and finally get […]

A former Labour Party advisor has slammed Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit position as she also criticised Caroline Flint MP for failing to show ‘progressive’ values by supporting a departure from the EU. The Question Time panel in Halifax. Photograph: BBC. – Credit: Archant The comments were provoked by an audience member in Halifax asking: “Will we […]

TIM WALKER reviews Bitter Wheat at Garrick Theatre One imagines Harvey Weinstein must be flattered that John Malkovich should now be playing a character so obviously inspired by him on the London stage. Sure, he would probably have preferred it if the star hadn’t felt the need to don a fat suit, but, other than […]

As baroque peaked, the classical era beckoned. SOPHIE DEBOICK reports on a year of big names and shifting tastes. Portrait of Leopold Mozart (1719-1787). Found in the Collection of Mozarteum (ISM), Salzburg. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images) – Credit: Getty Images The boundaries of thought and the borders of the known world were […]

Ken Clarke has said he feels the public’s exasperation with Brexit and the ‘nonsense’ around no-deal Brexit. Speaking to Adam Boulton on Sky News, the father of the house, said he was worried people have got to the point now where they are so fed up of Brexit they will allow anything to happen because […]

The Green Party is expected to stand aside for the Brecon and Radnor by-election in a bid to show ‘Remain unity’. The election was called after a recall petition received more than 10% of support from electors in the constituency. It followed Tory MP Chris Davies’ conviction for faking expenses claims after submitting two false […]

Sound familiar? The former leader of UKIP is planning to re-stand for election weeks after he resigned from the post. Gerard Batten quit as leader on June 2 after UKIP was wiped out at the European elections by its former leader Nigel Farage’s new group, the Brexit Party. But following in the footsteps of Farage, […]

Young anti-Brexit campaigners have flooded the street outside Boris Johnson’s campaign HQ with yellow rubber ducks to call on the Tory MP to ‘stop ducking Brexit reality’. https://twitter.com/elliemjourno/status/1144221465564405761 The activists, from Our Future Our Choice, deployed the the ducks with the hashtag #BoJoNoShow because they believe Boris Johnson is ducking the British people and the […]

Diane Abbott has become the latest shadow cabinet figure to publicly express concerns about the party’s policy on Brexit. The shadow home secretary – one of Jeremy Corbyn’s closest allies – tweeted she was “beginning to worry” whether the party had got its strategy right. Her intervention will add to the pressure on the Labour […]

The People’s Vote campaign is launching a new advertising campaign featuring an image of Boris Johnson in the pocket of Nigel Farage. The campaign is designed to highlight how Nigel Farage’s destructive no-deal agenda is driving the race to become the next prime mninister, with the front-runner Boris Johnson increasingly adopting the hard-line position of […]

A caller challenged Jacob Rees-Mogg on his claims about what reflects the ‘will of the people’ – as he tried to distort the findings of a new opinion poll which backs Remain. Rees-Mogg hosted a telephone debate on his LBC show asking people if the 28% of the population that wanted to leave without a […]

The European parliament’s disciplinary body is recommending that Nigel Farage is given the ‘highest penalty’ for a ‘serious breach’ in its code of conduct – which could lead to a ban from the Strasbourg premises. The European parliament’s Advisory Committee on the Conduct of Members also suggests referring the MEP to the European Anti-Fraud Office […]

New billboards exposing the hypocrisy of the man favoured to be the next prime minister have been erected at Glastonbury festival and around the country. The Led By Donkeys campaign, known for their anti-Brexit stunts, last month rose to international fame for trolling the President of the United States with their projection of the comments […]

Who is on Question Time tonight and where do they stand on Brexit? Here’s your guide… The BBC’s flagship current affairs programme tonight comes from Halifax, where, in 1938, there were fears of a serial killer in the town – fears which were allayed when it turned out that people had been inflicting wounds on […]

Editor-at-large ALASTAIR CAMPBELL (mostly) puts Brexit aside for a week, as he meets broadcaster Gabby Logan to talk football, feminism and male keyboard warriors. Well, nobody can accuse the BBC of wasting the licence fee on glamorous hotels for their star presenters. We’re on the outskirts of Paris to interview Gabby Logan, who is fronting […]

The Dalai Lama has spoken out in support of Remain for the first time since his face was plastered on a Leave.EU poster at the time of the referendum. In an interview with BBC News at the Dalai Lama’s residence in northern India, the spiritual leader was asked for his views on Brexit, three years […]

Chris Grayling is getting his cheque book out again as the transport secretary searches out new freight services to supply essentials in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Grayling’s department will seek a list of suppliers to provide freight capacity for critical supply chains “as and when required”, cabinet secretary David Lidington has said, after […]

Tory Brexiteer Mark Francois debate a former international trade negotiator on television and tried to put a positive on no-deal Brexit tariffs hitting the car industry by saying ‘at least it would be our choice’. The Conservative MP for Rayleigh and Wickford was in debate with David Henig on Sky News as they both discussed […]

Even the Daily Express were struggling to sell the latest unicorn to be released from the pro-Brexit stable. Neigh, neigh and thrice neigh! Having witnessed their stable of unicorns (max fac, the backstop to the backstop, the Malthouse Compromise) hobbling one-by-one to the unicorn knacker’s yard and thence to the unicorn glue factory, you might […]

A video clip that is going viral on social media shows Terry Christian getting a ticking off from television and radio presenter Jeremy Vine. But what it doesn’t show is Christian taking on a panel of pro-Brexit voices on Jeremy Vine’s Channel 5 programme – compromising of John Caudwell and Carole Malone – and getting […]

With Theresa May enjoying working out her notice, this week’s PMQs was dominated by somebody who wasn’t there. Theresa May seems to be enjoying working out her notice. Unlike the rest of us, she doesn’t have to write reams of handover notes for her successor, who has never knowingly read a briefing document. It’s not […]

If Boris Johnson wins the Tory leadership race, it would be a ‘great recruiting tool’ for the Liberal Democrats, said MP Jo Swinson. While Johnson would be “disastrous for our country”, “the silver lining is it’s good for the Liberal Democrats”, the MP claimed The MP explained that a Johnson premiership committed to Brexit on […]

A BBC newsreader raised eyebrows when he issued a sarcastic jibe aimed at Tory leadership contestant Boris Johnson for his answer about making model buses. In the interview Johnson was asked about what he does to relax. While Theresa May answered the question previously in a fairly standard ‘Maybot’ way – talking about her love […]