News and Opinion

Tory Brexiteer MP Desmond Swayne has called for Boris Johnson to prorogue parliament again, and the Supreme Court to be stopped from political rulings. Swayne was one of the first Brexiteers to call for a prorogation to force Brexit through parliament when Theresa May was prime minister. He said he was not serious, however, because […]

The leader of the Brexit Party was neatly pranked by a caller to his LBC show. Nigel Farage was presenting the show like normal when ‘Mark from Northampton’ called in. The caller firstly lulled Farage into a false sense of security by talking about the Supreme Court decision which has gone against the government. But […]

Boris Johnson has bemused the United Nations by making a comparison of Brexit to the Greek mythical figure of Prometheus. UN ambassadors watch Boris Johnson’s speech with bemusement. Photograph: Sky News. – Credit: Archant Prometheus was chained to a rock as an eagle which pecked out his liver every day for eternity. The Vote Leave […]

Jeremy Corbyn has confirmed Labour will vote against any short recess to allow the Conservatives to hold their conference next week. The government had been expected to table a motion paving the way for a short recess of parliament to allow the Conservatives to go to their party conference next week. The Times’ Steven Swinford […]

National newspapers have called for Boris Johnson to resign a day after a Supreme Court found he misled the public on his prorogation plan. Front page of the Mirror. Photograph: Twitter. – Credit: Archant While Johnson has remained defiant, and Downing Street has made it clear he will not resign, the Financial Times, the Daily […]

Peter Trudgill recounts the story of what happened to one of Britain’s ancient languages, Old Norse During the first millennium AD, Britain was home to four major languages, each of which had arrived from a different point of the compass. The first was Britonnic Celtic, the ancestor of Breton and Cornish, which had come to […]

Françoise Sagan lived an ostentatious and radical lifestyle when she was not working on a collection of dozens of plays, novels, and short stories, CHARLIE CONNELLY reports. On the afternoon of September 14, 1957, Françoise Sagan was at the wheel of her Aston Martin barrelling along the D448 just outside Paris. Egged on by the […]

The chairman of the Brexit Party Richard Tice says people need to now realise we will not leave the EU on October 31st. Tice said that Boris Johnson is “probably going to have to offer his resignation” when parliament returns, and that Dominic Cummings should resign too. He said a general election should happen in […]

Boris Johnson’s attorney general told ministers prorogation would be legal and that any ‘outrage’ over it would be politically motivated, say reports. A Scottish court released the redacted minutes of a conference call between cabinet ministers discussing the option of prorogation. But an unredacted version has been leaked to Sky News which stated that attorney […]

Jeremy Corbyn has set out an ambitious leftwing agenda in a speech that has been received almost rapturously despite the Brexit divisions the party conference has exposed. The Labour leader said that the “years of retreat and defeat are coming to an end” and confirmed that a Labour government would organise a second Brexit referendum. […]

As one of the most historic judicial rulings helped shape the course of this country’s democratic future, Twitter marked the moment with memes. Came to power, lost his majority live on TV, fired his hero's grandson, set the record of losing his first five votes in Parliament (breaking the previous record of four set by […]

Labour frontbencher Barry Gardiner has repeated claims that Tom Watson recently made – which nearly saw him ousted from the role of deputy leader. Barry Gardiner, Labour’s shadow secretary for international trade, was appearing on the BBC’s Politics Live when he said that wants to “resolve, finally the issue of Brexit”. But he argued that […]

Protesters have delivered a P45 to Downing Street as they called on Boris Johnson to resign in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling. Protesters outside the Supreme Court in London. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA Wire. – Credit: PA Another man wearing a model of his head in an inmate’s striped clothing both arrived at the […]

Pro-Brexit campaign group Leave.EU launched a series of social media posts branding the ‘unaccountable lawyers’ behind the Supreme Court verdict ‘enemies of the people’. Leave.EU brands Supreme Court judges enemies of the people. Photograph: Facebook. – Credit: Archant In an image updated using an old Daily Mail front, the campaign group superimposed a picture of […]

A Brexiteer backbencher has said that the Supreme Court ruling which found that Boris Johnson acted unlawfully in proroguing parliament was an ‘absolute disgrace’. Boris Johnson "acted unlawfully, and he's played fast and loose with the constitution" says Labour's Stephen Doughty"It's the worst possible outcome for our democracy" says Conservative Andrew Bridgen, calling Supreme Court […]

Gina Miller has called for Boris Johnson to ‘open the doors’ of parliament after the Supreme Court’s ruling on prorogation of parliament, and said it was a ‘win for parliamentary sovereignty’. A panel of 11 justices in the UK’s highest court gave their decision in a ruling on the legality of the prime minister’s advice […]

Crowds outside the Supreme Court spontaneously burst into chants of ‘Johnson out’ and ‘reopen parliament’ as judges revealed their unanimous findings against the government The historic judgement has found that Boris Johnson acted unlawfully in proroguing parliament and ordered that the speaker of the house decide what steps to take next. Protesters outside the Supreme […]

Read Lady Hale’s statement in full declaring that Boris Johnson’s advice to the Queen to suspend parliament for five weeks was unlawful. Lady Hale said: “We have before us two appeals, one from the High Court of England and Wales and one from the Inner House of the Court of Session in Scotland. It is […]

House of Commons speaker John Bercow has said parliament must ‘convene without delay’ and that he would be consulting party leaders ‘as a matter of urgency’. https://twitter.com/tictoc/status/1176462560381546497 Following the news that the Supreme Court had found the prorogation case was ‘unlawful’, the speaker said: “I welcome the Supreme Court’s judgement that the prorogation of parliament […]

Eleven Supreme Court justices have found in favour of a Scottish court that ruled Boris Johnson’s prorogation of parliament was unlawful. Having decided unanimously that it is indeed within the power of the courts to intervene, the judges then ruled that the prime minister was acting unlawfully when he advised the Queen to prorogue parliament. […]

Union boss Len McCluskey has repeatedly told a reporter she was ‘telling lies’ when she asked him about the Labour leadership’s ‘stitch-up’ over Brexit. Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby asked McCluskey about the widely-reported tweets sent by Jon Lansman, the founder of Momentum and National Executive Committee member. Rigby told the union boss: “Your […]

The National Crime Agency said it has found no evidence of criminality after investigating a series of claims against Brexit campaign group Leave.EU and the businessman Arron Banks. But it has not ruled out further investigations over allegations of involvement in “criminality related to business dealings overseas”. The NCA said that no evidence of crime […]

Andrea Leadsom has claimed she ‘trusts what Boris Johnson has to say’ about his relationship with an ex-model and entrepreneur as she hinted an propriety and ethics team investigation would take place. Jennifer Arcuri is alleged to have been given public money and access to overseas trade missions while Boris Johnson was mayor of London. […]

Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow has been criticised for suggesting that there should be a second referendum because of the number of deaths since 2016. Snow was interviewing Labour MPs Stephen Kinnock and Alison McGovern posed the point that a lot of younger people are now on the electoral roll, and many older people […]

The ripples of the empire still have a huge impact on our lives, writes WILL SELF, but the coincidences of cultural memory make us who we are. You don’t have to be an Anglophile American, such as T. S. Eliot, who got his jollies by transmogrifying into an arch-English cultural conservative (and Brexiteer avant la […]

Bookmakers have cut the odds on the chances of Boris Johnson becoming the shortest serving prime minister in history. Johnson will need to remain in post until November 20 to avoid the distinction of holding the office for fewer days than any of his predecessors. On that date he will overtake George Canning, who clocked […]

Boris Johnson has refused say if he will resign if he loses the Supreme Court case that decides whether or not his decision to prorogue parliament was lawful. The prime minister is awaiting the ruling from the UK’s highest court on his decision to send MPs away from parliament until October 14 as the Brexit […]

Boris Johnson has dismissed the notion of an election alliance with Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, and has said he will field Tory candidates in every constituency. Farage has been wooing the prime minister with the offer of a general election Brexit pact in order to see off the threat of an alliance between Remain-supporting parties. […]