News and Opinion

Download the free podcast from the team at The New European to hear our review of the week in politics. Every Friday Richard Porritt and Steve Anglesey review another wild week in post-common sense Britain. The award-nominated podcast is packed full of big news, comment, and irreverent views. We talk about the issues that matter […]

Almost alone among EU members, Ireland has been a bastion of political stability, but will a Sinn Féin surge in this weekend’s election change everything? JASON WALSH reports Mary Lou McDonald, young at 50 years old and known both for her vocal stance on social issues and for rising to the top of her political […]

MICHAEL WHITE looks back on the week Britain reclaimed its disputed sovereignty, the coronavirus took over, and pundits grappled with the ‘Johnson project’. ‘Let’s outwit the Frenchies and set full sail for the sandbanks’ Martin Rowson – Credit: Archant Did you catch his Greenwich speech, the bit about trading Australia-style: the new euphemism for a […]

Tory Brexiteer broadcaster Iain Dale has dramatically stormed off a TV set over a debate about government austerity and cuts to social care. Dale was appearing on Good Morning Britain alongside commentators Grace Blakeley and Nihal Arthanayake when the conversation turned to the discussion of Jonty Bravery, the autistic teenager who almost killed a French […]

Brexit was never going to be hell, says JAMES BALL, but the government is making sure it’s purgatory. It was supposed to be done. We were told it was done. We were promised it was done. An hour before the seemingly endless month of January drew to a close, the UK left the European Union. […]

The producer of a pro-Brexit movie has been jailed for almost four years after fraudulently securing a loan from a business belonging to Dragon’s Den entrepreneur James Cann. David Shipley, producer of Brexit: The Movie, was jailed for three years and nine months after it was revealed he edited images of his payslips and P60 […]

GLEN O’HARA says that as reality bites, the best Boris Johnson can expected by the end of the year is a ‘skinny deal’ from the EU. Boris Johnson seems to dominate the political landscape, in complete triumph – for now. In just a few months, he has vanquished not just Labour and the Liberal Democrats, […]

A Brexiteer has used a radio interview to call for the government to reintroduce the death penalty now Brexit has happened, despite the fact the last coming almost ten years before the UK joined the first iteration of the EU. Radio presenter James O’Brien was discussing chancellor Sajid Javid’s challenge for the public to identify […]

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…

Coups, controversies, legal loopholes and hidden treasure… EMMA LUCK recounts the remarkable story of the micronation of Seborga, one of Europe’s oddest places Perched on a hilly outcrop close to the France-Italy border, with majestic views of the Riviera below, the medieval town of Seborga is every bit as charming as you would expect. But […]

BONNIE GREER says a new era has begun, as Brexit Britain is born into a presidential shakedown A week into Brexit, the UK faces some big dilemmas: Huawei and US opposition to it; and a US/UK trade deal, and who ultimately shapes and controls the agreement that Trump dangles before Boris Johnson. One of the […]

PAUL KNOTT explores Poland’s enigmatic PiS party which, despite the deliberate weakening of the institutions of democracy and the rule of law, remains genuinely popular and likely to retain power for years to come The Polish people have fought for centuries to secure their freedom from dictatorship. In the 20th century, a short period of […]

Police believe that dissident republications planted a bomb on a lorry bound for an Irish Sea ferry to detonate it on Brexit day. PSNI Assistant Chief Constable George Clarke. Photograph: Rebecca Black/PA Wire. – Credit: PA Officers have blamed the Continuity IRA for the botched terror bid planned for January 31st, after Belfast newspaper the […]

Boris Johnson has nominated a Tory donor and Brexiteer for a peerage after the city tycoon donated £50,000 to his leadership campaign. Peter Cruddas, the former Tory party treasurer has given more than £3.5 million to the Conservatives and more than £1.5 million to the Vote Leave campaign, which he co-founded. Cruddas, who founded CMC […]

A Tory Brexiteer MP who was widely criticised for speaking alongside far-right politicians at an Italian conference has been reprimanded by the party – but not suspended. Daniel Kawczynski defied critics to speak at an event in Rome as part of a line-up that included Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban and Italy’s Matteo Salvini. The […]

Readers have a mixed reaction to an opinion column from a Brexit Party official telling Remainers to be more measured over a 50p Brexit coin. A bong reverberates for about 15 seconds; a coin will be around for scores, perhaps hundreds of years. Mr Towler, for many the new coin is a permanent reminder of […]

Readers are split over what action Remainers should take next on Brexit. I couldn’t disagree more with Matt Kelly’s injunction to avoid “I told you so” (“Remain must become something bigger”). We now live in a post-truth nightmare. To not throw every single example of the predictions of “Project Fear” coming true back in the […]

The father of Boris Johnson accidentally forwarded an email which outlined Chinese officials’ concerns about the prime minister to a BBC journalist. The contents reveal the Chinese were concerned Johnson had not sent a personal message of support to the country’s leaders after the coronavirus outbreak. The BBC reported Johnson wrote: “Re the outbreak of […]

More than three million EU citizens have applied to live and work in the UK after Brexit according to the Home Office, but thousands of children are yet to have their applications processed. The Home Office’s latest internal figures show more than 2.7 million applicants have been granted permission to remain in the UK so […]

Boris Johnson is reportedly planning to nominate expelled Tory politicians Ken Clarke and Phillip Hammond – despite kicking them out of the party when they voted against the government over a no-deal Brexit. The two former chancellors, who rebelled against the government to back the Benn act to stop a no-deal Brexit, reportedly could be […]

A group of protesters from East London – including refugees and human rights workers – have walked to the Home Office to hand over a 75,000 strong petition demanding child refugees are reunited with their families in the UK. Andy Hewlett and Nina from the Refugee Council, outside the Home Office, London, before handing a […]

Who is on Question Time tonight? Here’s your guide… The BBC’s flagship current affairs programme tonight comes from Harpenden, Hertfordshire, the former home of Stanley Kubrick. But who will redefine the way politics is viewed like Dr. Strangelove – and whose performance will be very quickly forgotten like Eyes Wide Shut? Here’s your complete guide […]

Universities are relying on students from outside the EU to fill the void left by fewer applications from European students. New UCAS statistics show that the number of EU applicants is now down by 2% (860 application) to 43,030. The students will have applied before the January 15th deadline knowing that they will be attending […]

A former Brexit Party candidate, multimillionaire and entrepreneur has developed a new invention using two wheelie bins which he claims will help homeless people at night. Peter Dawe, from Ely, is proposing a ‘sleep pod’ which is made of two red wheelie bins with a hinge which can be put together to enable someone to […]

History will judge Theresa May ‘more kindly’ than some of her critics did after she quit, Theresa May’s former de facto deputy Sir David Liddington has claimed. Sir David was speaking after he received his knighthood from the Prince of Wales at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace. He had been named by Theresa May in […]

Outspoken television presenter Piers Morgan has continued to criticise Boris Johnson for turning down interviews with his breakfast television programme Good Morning Britain. During the election campaign the ITV breakfast show went to great lengths to get Johnson on the programme to get the prime minister to appear. At one point a reporter door-stepped the […]

This week’s prime minister’s questions was the first to have a sign language interpreter, meaning the deaf can suffer it too Anybody who wished to could log on to Parliament’s website and watch proceedings be simultaneously translated by a man in a sharp suit – although what the sign is for the audible dissent from […]

Boris Johnson has been accused of trying to changing his strategy to intentionally impersonate Donald Trump in his prime ministerial position. In Prime Minister’s Questions the SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford referenced the exclusion of journalists from a Downing Street briefing and sacking Claire O’Neill as president of COP26. He told the Commons: “In the […]