News and Opinion

Border Force staff could face having time off blocked if Britain leaves the EU without a deal. Proposals were reportedly sent to home secretary Sajid Javid as the government explores emergency arrangements for a no-deal scenario. Under one option, time off would be blocked for officers in the four weeks from March 24 – five […]

Consultant Andy Pardy packed in his job, bought a van and embarked on a very unusual anti-Brexit mission As a passionate pro-European mourning the potential of Britain’s last summer in the EU, Andy Pardy was looking for some kind of project to vent his frustration at Brexit. The epiphany came as he was running, and […]

Boris Johnson has been asked to apologise for his remarks comparing women in burkas to “letter boxes”. We’ve been here before As recently as March, the political Timothy Lumsden was forced to eat humble pie after referring in the Commons to his then Labour opposite number Emily Thornberry as the “Lady Baroness whatever” – an […]

In the absence of focused leadership for peace it’s time we demand more of ourselves, says MIKE HARDY ‘Sometimes, when we watch the evening news and consume our daily diet of stories of intense violence, extremist and anti-social behaviour, we question our abilities to stop our collective plummet into the abyss. It may be true […]

Labour has warned of a rise in far-right politics after Boris Johnson made inflammatory comments about Muslim women who wear face veils. Lumping the former foreign secretary in with ex-English Defence League (EDL) leader Tommy Robinson and a group described as fascists who stormed a left-wing bookshop, John McDonnell called for a campaign of resistance. […]

In the past, The Edinburgh Fringe has often been a hotbed of some of the most satirical and illuminating political comedy. So what does 2018 have to offer? The writer and novelist JOHN NICHOLSON is our man in the Athens of the North When many of our most important politicians are such ridiculous, ludicrous, grotesque […]

STEVE ANGLESEY introduces the drink Leavers will cheer… until they read the bottle Not to everyone’s taste, but intoxicating to some and the cause of many headaches and much regret later on. It seems like whiskey and Brexit were made for each other. So thirsty Leavers will no doubt be cheering the arrival of Brexit […]

There would be a risk to the public from a Hard Brexit, police chiefs have warned. Police and crime commissioners have written to the home secretary to express concern over what withdrawing from the EU will mean for security measures. They have asked Sajid Javid to confirm the Home Office has developed a contingency plan […]

The Article 50 process could be suspended by the end of the year, Nigel Farage has claimed. With the risk of a ‘no deal’ Brexit becoming more likely and public opinion moving away from the UK exiting the European Union, Nigel Farage told listeners of his LBC show that there will be a ‘huge surrender’ […]

Conservative Party chairman Brandon Lewis has called on Boris Johnson to apologise for comments he made about Muslim women wearing burkas. The call followed a hail of criticism for Mr Johnson’s remarks, which were described as “offensive” by Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt and “bigotry” by former Tory chair Baroness Warsi. Writing in the Daily […]

Farmers have called on the government to make food security a top priority on the day the country’s cupboards would run bare if households relied only on British produce. A long-term decline in self-sufficiency that has stagnated at around 60% in recent years means around three quarters of the shortfall is imported from the rest […]

Ministers in Liam Fox’s trade department still haven’t visited a number of countries they want to strike post-Brexit deals with, it has emerged. Despite having identified them as targets for trade deals once Britain leaves the EU, no minister from the Department for International Trade has visited countries including Ukraine, Algeria, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic […]

Boris Johnson has come under fire after saying that Muslim women wearing burkas “look like letter boxes” or bank robbers. The former foreign secretary came out against calls for a ban on the face-covering veils in public places, but described them as “absolutely ridiculous” and compared their wearers to rebellious teenagers. His comments, in response […]

Labour grassroots members have turned against Brexit, with nearly 200 constituency parties pushing for a policy shift at the autumn conference next month. A motion to “stop Tory Brexit and win a radical Labour government” will be put forward by the unprecedented number of Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs). Supporters want to see Labour vote down […]

There’s more than just misguided coverage behind the Today programme’s malaise, says MIC WRIGHT The Today programme — required listening for anyone who works in politics — took a beating in the latest Rajar figures. The body, which monitors UK radio listening, reported last week that the audience for Radio 4’s flagship current affairs show […]

Speeches have emerged of prominent Brexiters supporting a referendum on a final Brexit deal from as far back as 2011. In a video clip widely-shared on social media the leading Brextremist Jacob Rees-Mogg made the case during a 2011 Commons debate on an EU referendum. He argued: ‘It might make more sense to have the […]

Care workers must be prioritised under new migration rules to stop a post-Brexit shortfall in provision that would leave women quitting work to look after elderly relatives, according to a leaked government report. In the “worst case scenario” where EU migrants were stopped from coming to the UK, there would be a shortage of 6,000 […]

A successful deal with the EU remains the “most likely outcome” of ongoing Brexit talks, Downing Street has insisted after Liam Fox said the UK was odds-on to crash out without one. Theresa May’s official spokesman repeated the prime minister’s earlier warning that the UK’s European partners should not let ideology or bureaucracy get in […]

Britain has turned into a ‘rudderless place’ which has lost trust in its government due to Brexit. A new report, published exclusively by The New European, has found Britain to be a country on the brink of ‘peak political apathy’ in the wake of the decision to quit Europe. Returning to five areas – Barnstaple, […]

The £39billion we have committed to pay to the EU upon our exit is NOT a gratuity or a divorce payment. It represents a legal liability. It represents historic infrastructure commitments and liabilities entered into by our nation that are to be completed by 2030. It represents the remaining 21 months of the seven-year budget […]

It would seem that one of the scapegoats being prepared for when Brexit fails are Remainers who refuse to ‘get behind Brexit’. How one is supposed to support a vacuum is beyond me. Brexit is by definition a negative, dismantling process; there is nothing there of substance to support, even if one wanted to. It’s […]

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…

With her Chequers agreement Theresa May is not trying to dilute Brexit: she is positively trying to deliver it. It would help her cause mightily if she communicated more bluntly to the country that a Boris Brexit, of having your cake and eating it, was and is undeliverable whoever is running the country. People need […]

As the Clarets start their season with a Europa League tie, Roger Domeneghetti looks back at the club’s first, incident-packed European campaign When Burnley and Aberdeen kick off in the second qualifying round of the Europa League this week, it will not only be the Scots – winners of the Cup Winners’ Cup and the […]

Leave.EU wants doctors without the required training in our surgeries and on our wards. In a much-ridiculed tweet – which links to an article on the alt-right website Westmonster – the group suggest that doctors qualify sooner than five years without the expected level of training. It claims that not allowing doctors to practice before […]

Voters in areas devastated by spending cuts swung the Brexit referendum for Leave, a new study has found. Economist Thiemo Fetzer discovered a close correlation between the parts of the country hit the hardest by austerity and votes for Brexit. More than £21bn was cut from the welfare budget during 2010 and 2015 by the […]

The governor of the Bank of England has warned the chance of a no-deal Brexit is ‘uncomfortably high’. Mark Carney also said any potential deadlock that leads to the UK crashing out of the European Union would spark higher prices for consumers. His stark words came as the prime minister cut short her holiday for […]

The British National Party’s bank accounts are running dry due to a drop in donations from the dead. The far-right party has seen its donations almost halve in 12 months receiving £155,828 in 2017 compared with £297,028 in 2016. The biggest drop in donations came from legacy income – money left to the party in […]

A Brexiteer MP is being mocked on Twitter for his blustering, misplaced bulldog-spirit optimism in the face of mounting fears over a no-deal Brexit. Tory MP Charlie Elphicke says British Spirit Will Make No-Deal Brexit A Success. Well that's all right then, I was starting to worry #TallyHoChaps https://t.co/xmPTiImoJu— Peter Stefanovic (@PeterStefanovi2) 1 August 2018 […]

The EU referendum was meant to unite the right to help the Tories see off a threat from Labour – but Europe has once again sparked a big rift in the right. According to party insiders UKIP’s membership has soared by 15% in the last month, with an extra 3,200 joining in July 2018. The […]

Michael Gove has been forced to deny reports he privately discussed a Norway-style solution to Brexit in the likely event that Theresa May’s Chequers strategy fails. The Financial Times reported the environment secretary and Brexiteer talked of “parking” the UK in the European Economic Area (EEA), like Norway, to avoid the chaos of a disorderly […]

They seem to be creeping more and more into use. But outside the world of showbiz we should be wary of giving public figures the one-name treatment says MIC WRIGHT Elvis. Prince. Madonna. Britney. Kylie (Minogue or Jenner). Even, at a push, Bono and Sting. These are all people who it’s fine to refer to […]