News and Opinion

Britain’s future with Europe remains unclear, but one thing is certain, it needs to request an extension to the Brexit transition period. BARNABY TOWNS explains that unity is strength. Europe Day is celebrated by the European Union on May 9th, commemorating the 1950 Schuman Declaration, signed by France, Germany, Italy and the Benelux nations 70 […]

STEVE ANGLESEY looks at the Brexiteers making the headlines for the wrong reasons this week, including one Tory who wanted to overturn the result of two referendums. DANIEL KAWCZYNSKI Last year the Shropshire MP was ranting about ‘MPs wishing to overturn the will of the British people’ but now he seems willing to overturn the […]

Chancellor Rishi Sunak is expected to make a decision on how and when the government’s furlough scheme will be phased out this weekend, after an official in Downing Street said people were becoming ‘addicted’ to it. Talks on the future of the costly support programme will be held in advance of prime minister Boris Johnson’s […]

Unlike other Boris Johnson efforts, The Perils of the Pushy Parents is not racist or sexist – it’s just ‘rubbish’. Two earnest and connected hopes for young Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson: One, that on December 13, 2024, his dad suddenly has a lot more time on his hands with which he can spend reading to […]

Only a few months ago, the BBC was in the government’s crosshairs. Now, says MATTHEW D’ANCONA, it has a new lease of life. Dominic Cummings is believed to be the senior source who, in February, told The Sunday Times that the government would press ahead with plans to axe the BBC licence fee. Picture: Getty […]

Former Liberal Democrat MEP LUISA PORRITT writes that young people’s determination for a shared European future makes Brexit unsustainable. Luisa Porritt in the European Parliament chamber. Picture: Harry Taylor/Archant. – Credit: Archant For those living in one of the European Union’s 27 member states, today is a celebration. It marks 70 years since the Schuman […]

The Liberal Democrats have used Europe Day to urge the government to grant foreign healthcare workers tackling the coronavirus the right to remain the UK. The campaign to give staff and their families indefinite leave to remain comes on the 70th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, which kick-started the EU project. The proposals have been […]

BONNIE GREER uses television to examine and investigate what it means to be ‘English’. David Suchet as Hercule Poirot. Picture: ITV – Credit: Archant Among the consequences of living in lockdown are the things that you suddenly see. That you suddenly know. For example, I have come to realise that I have been a Londoner […]

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has sent a letter after being visited by police after flouting coronavirus lockdown guidelines. In the letter, posted on his Twitter account which was headed ‘the office of Nigel Farage, the Brexiteer complained of being ‘extremely unhappy’ following a home visit by Kent Police on Monday night. Farage ignored government […]

HELEN DEVEREUX reports on the forgotten plight of merchant sailors trapped on their ships by the coronavirus. At the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis, much attention was paid to the plight of cruise tourists. Governments around the world closed their ports to cruise ships and refused to allow passengers to disembark. While all those tourists […]

A new mobile app launched by the government as part of its ‘track, trace, and test’ programme to slow the spread of the coronavirus has had major technical issues, an analysis has found. UK privacy charity Privacy International has claimed the NHSX app, built to track and trace people who have had Covid-19, does not […]

The Met Police has dropped an investigation into two pro-Brexit campaigners who were accused of breaking electoral spending rules during the 2016 EU referendum. Boris Johnson speaks at a Vote Leave rally with Priti Patel and Michael Gove (right) in Preston town centre, Lancashire, as part of pro-Brexit campaigning. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA. – Credit: PA […]

A Question Time panellist has slammed praise of Boris Johnson’s coronavirus response, labelling it ‘insulting’ to victims’ families. Writer Aufa Hirsch was responding to a viewer’s question over the UK’s Covid-19 death rate when she said the government needed to be more transparent in its handling of disease, downplaying claims its response had been a […]

Coronavirus has escalated Donald Trump’s breaking down of everything that holds Amercia together, writes JAMES BALL. Can it survive another four years of this? It is impossible not to wonder, when you read about or watch a documentary on certain periods of history, whether the people of the time knew what was coming. Given how […]

A BBC Question Time viewer has claimed the government’s coronavirus response makes her feel ‘disappointed’ to be British during Victory in Europe (VE) Day. Margaret Collins asked the Question Time panellists why the UK’s Covid-19 death toll had become one of the highest in the world, saying she did not feel ‘particularly proud’ to be […]

While our TV news is still fairly responsible, according to MITCH BENN, our newspapers are even worse for bias and recklessness than their American counterparts. There’s a sort of numbness setting in now, isn’t there? A hollow, aching, weary resignation punctuated by periods of gnawing dread (and perhaps searing grief) when the virus’s crosshairs hover […]

Think you know Europe? Take our latest lockdown quiz As a New European reader, you probably reckon you know the continent inside out. Test yourself with our fiendish quiz…

Coronavirus cases in care homes and hospitals are driving up the transmission rate of the virus, experts have warned, in contradiction of Dominic Raab’s comments at the latest Downing Street briefing. Ahead of Boris Johnson considering an easing of lockdown measures, Dominic Raab tried to present good news by revealing that the rate of infection […]

Ex-Brexit Party MEP John Longworth has claimed the UK would do better exiting the transition period than staying in to reboot its economy after the coronavirus. Longworth told talkRADIO that Brexit was only a ‘minor disruption’ to businesses compared to the coronavirus and that the UK needed to leave the transition period before December if […]

Foreign correspondent Christina Lamb on what covering conflicts abroad has taught her about life – and good and the bad – carrying on in extraordinary circumstances. In these strange times in which we find ourselves, I started listing things that make me happy. Listening to bossa nova. Eating grilled sardines in the alleyways of Alfama, […]

Shadow trade minister Bill Esterson has said it was ‘no surprise’ the NHS was unprepared for the coronavirus epidemic, claiming a decade of Tory cuts had left the public sector ‘run down’. Appearing on TalkRADIO, shadow trade minister Esterson said that shrinking public sector budgets had undermined the NHS’s ability to cope with coronavirus patients. […]

The public should not break social distancing rules to bask in the sun over the bank holiday weekend despite the prospect of lockdown measures being eased on Monday, Downing Street said. Boris Johnson is expected to use an address to the nation on Sunday night to signal the easing of some of the social distancing […]

Britain has shown ‘no real sign’ of approaching the Brexit talks with a ‘plan to succeed’ and is planning to blame the failure on coronavirus, the EU’s trade commissioner has claimed. Phil Hogan claimed Westminster has decided Covid-19 is ‘going to be blamed for all the fallout’ from Brexit, as he bemoaned the ‘very slow […]

The New European’s Editor-at-Large settles down to watch ‘Misbehaviour’ and examines the evolution of the Miss World contest. Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Suki Waterhouse and Clara Rosager in Misbehaviour (2020). Picture: PA – Credit: Archant When I recently listed on these pages ’20 things I miss in the lockdown’, cinema came in at No.11, well behind Burnley […]

Who is on the BBC Question Time panel tonight? Here’s your full guide Tonight’s audience-free virtual Question Time comes from the ether, with the show having abandoned its pandemic practice of sourcing video questions from a particular town. But who’s on the panel? Here’s your complete guide… George Eustice Who? Environment secretary The former unsuccessful […]

Piers Morgan has claimed that the government has banned ministers from ITV’s Good Morning Britain (GMB). The GMB presenter claimed on Twitter that Downing Street had barred ministers from appearing on the breakfast show. In a firey post directed at Boris Johnson and Downing Street’s Twitter accounts, Morgan wrote: ‘The UK govt has banned any […]

At a time when the public is clapping for the NHS the government is entering post-Brexit talks with the US which could put in danger the future of our health service. International Trade Secretary Liz Truss and the US trade representative Robert Lighthizer (on screen) as they formally begin the UK-US trade talks. Photograph: Andrew […]

A leaderless world is proving to be ill-equipped for the crisis at hand, says MICHAEL WHITE. A cartoon used by Philip Zec to mark VE Day in 1945. Picture: Philip Zec – Credit: Archant The writer, Michael Morpurgo, wrote a poignant article at the weekend to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day. Amid second-hand […]