News and Opinion

Work and pensions secretary Amber Rudd has been urged to start telling the truth on a no-deal Brexit again after she denied she was a ‘sell out’ for joining Boris Johnson’s cabinet. Rudd once claimed Boris Johnson was “not the man you want driving you home at the end of the evening” but rowed back […]

The People’s Vote campaign has announced a date for what is expected to be one of the biggest public protests Britain has ever seen. The march for our democracy, for our country and for our future will take place in London on October 19 – just 12 days before Boris Johnson plans to take the […]

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas has apologised for including only white women in her proposed female anti-Brexit cabinet, admitting she was ‘wrong to overlook’ her ‘women of colour colleagues’. The apology comes after the former Green Party leader wrote to 10 other female politicians opposed to a no-deal break with the EU, inviting them to […]

A Brexit Party MEP has claimed that there are more racists in the Remain camp than there are in the Brexit camp. Ben Habib, who recently blamed Remainers for the drop in the pound, was debating with Times writer Oliver Kamm about evidence of racism within the Brexit Party. Kamm’s newspaper had just revealed that […]

Brexiteer Michael Gove has helped to launch a new ‘rapid rebuttal unit’ from the government to try to kill stories about the risks of a no-deal Brexit. The new unit will be run by civil servants from the cabinet office, the Telegraph reports, with the aim to ensure that “the public and businesses are not […]

Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson has visited the Irish border – something the prime minister has failed to do in his new role, or in two years as foreign secretary. Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson with Alliance Party deputy leader Stephen Farry. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA Wire. – Credit: PA On her first ever visit to […]

JASON SOLOMONS identifies one of the films of the summer and hears from director Gurinder Chadha about how it was inspired by Brexit. Gurinder Chadha, director of ‘Blinded By The Light’. Picture: Getty Images – Credit: Getty Images Blinded by the Light is one of the best films of the summer. A big, bright British […]

Nigel Farage has made a series of incendiary remarks about members of the royal family at a conference and during a live television interview. The Brexit Party leader – in a speech in Australia to Sydney’s Conservative Political Action Conference – reportedly ridiculed comments by the Duke of Sussex that he and wife Meghan planned […]

Readers react to the latest electioneering from Boris Johnson – and the lies to come from his cabinet. There is talk of Boris Johnson and his Brexiteer cabinet planning an enormously expensive advertising campaign to promote their choice of Brexit. I suggest that we preempt them with our own campaign, placing full-page advertisements in all […]

A pensioner who has been nicknamed the ‘graffiti grandma’ for scrawling anti-Brexit slogans on a wall has gone viral on social media. Anti-Brexit graffiti that has appeared in Wakefield. Photograph: Facebook. – Credit: Archant Video footage showed 71-year-old Hazel Jones chalking anti-Brexit messages into walls and fences across Wakefield in West Yorkshire. Footage posted ot […]

As another Manson movie hits cinemas, JAMES OLIVER examines why this Hollywood story continues to beguile film-makers. Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate in One Upon A Time in Hollywood, 2019. Picture: Getty Images – Credit: Archant Fifty years ago, a couple of weeks after the first moon landing, a few days before Woodstock, came events […]

New research has suggested that households have already spent £4 billion on stockpiling goods in preparation for Brexit. But that figure is down by £600 million when compared to research carried out before March 29th – Theresa May’s original Brexit deadline. According to a survey by finance provider Premium Credit, one in five of us […]

Green MP Caroline Lucas has proposed an emergency cabinet to block a no-deal Brexit that would implement a fresh referendum. Lucas would team up with female Remainer MPs including Labour’s Emily Thornberry, Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson and former Tory minister Justine Greening, and would work alongside SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon. The MP says that […]

A legal challenge to prevent Boris Johnson forcing through a no-deal Brexit by suspending parliament has been allowed to proceed by the Scottish courts. The legal bid, backed by more than 70 MPs and peers, is seeking to get the Court of Session in Edinburgh to rule that suspending parliament to make the UK leave […]

Friday evening’s power cut brought a lot of England and Wales to a standstill. Consultant and former academic ELWYN LLOYD JONES says without the support of the EU it could become a more regular occurrence. How the UK relies on electricity interconnectors with our EU partners. Photograph: Crown Estate. – Credit: Archant The power cut […]

Decades before the existential threat of Brexit, acts including Kraftwerk decided inclusion was far more important than excommunication. Trans-Europe Express Kraftwerk. Picture: Getty Images – Credit: Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images If there was anyone who really understood the magnitude of a ‘European’ music, it was Kraftwerk. Decades before the existential threat of Brexit, years before […]

Michael Heseltine has claimed that Dominic Cummings is allowing Boris Johnson to ‘rip the heart out’ of democracy over Brexit. The ex-Tory peer made the comments in the Sunday Times as Johnson continues to repeatedly refuse to rule out suspending parliament to force through a no-deal Brexit. Speaking to Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday, […]

The reported ‘Boris bounce’ is falling flat in key marginal seats with the Conservatives set to lose more than half the constituencies they will be defending against a resurgent Liberal Democrats. New polling by YouGov has found a 14.1% slump in Conservative support and an overall swing of more than 8% to the Liberal Democrats, […]

Eurotunnel should offer a quality rail experience. But the reality is far from it, says regular passenger Victor Lewis-Smith. The Eurotunnel train makes it’s way towards the tunnel entrance in Folkestone. Picture: Getty Images – Credit: Getty Images When a company changes its name, it’s often a desperate attempt to cover up an ongoing PR […]

The chancellor is planning to mint millions of commemorative Brexit 50p coins in time for October 31st to show the government is serious about leaving. Sajid Javid has asked officials whether it is possible to produce the coins in time for the date the UK is next expected to leave the European Union, the Telegraph […]

A farm that Boris Johnson’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings co-owns has taken £235,000 in EU subsidies. Cummings, who masterminded the Vote Leave campaign, has claimed he wanted to end the “absurd subsidies” that the EU pays out to the UK. But he has been accused of hypocrisy after the Observer revealed that he too had […]

UKIP has replaced Gerard Batten with a new leader. Richard Braine has been elected after taking more than half the vote, a party spokesman has said. In a ballot of members, the chairman of the party’s West London branch received 53% of the vote – more than double that of his closest rival. Freddy Vachha […]

They seem an increasingly unfashionable, unoriginal choice now, but package holidays were once little short of revolutionary. SOPHIA DEBOICK tells the tale of the first ever trip, and its visionary mastermind. Tourists enjoy Majorca in the years before mass tourism. Picture: Getty Images – Credit: Getty Images More than 160 years after Thomas Cook organised […]

Readers give their opinions on Dominic Cummings, who has taken charge at 10 Downing Street. I should love Dominic Cummings. By winning the 2016 referendum for Vote Leave, he has greatly advanced the cause of an independent Scotland. Even better, by advocating no-deal if the other 27 EU countries remain defiant to the demands of […]

An autumn election requires hard choices and sacrifices – but does offer hope. It doesn’t help anything to overstate, and I would never say living under an unelected, clownish prime minister hell-bent on national sabotage was in any way like descending into totalitarianism. But last week did remind me a little of the literature one […]

Why Britain faces dangers that are still rising – and cannot be held back. Downing Street ‘svengali’ and special adviser to Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings. Picture: Jonathan Brady/PA Wire/PA Images – Credit: PA Wire/PA Images My Brexit star of the week so far is Andrew McLackland, the man who refused to leave Whaley Bridge with […]

It’s a case of all aboard for murder as Eastenders star Samantha Womack plays an embittered, unemployed Rachel Watson. Duke of York’s, London, until August 17 In essence, The Girl on the Train is a creaky, old-fashioned whodunnit with ideas above its station. And, yes, a brilliantly clever pun was just intended there. Fans of […]

We know what we need to do to defeat the opposition at a snap general election, can the Remain movement rise to the challenge? The formula to defeat Boris Johnson in a general election while emphasising opposition to any sort of Brexit seems fairly clear: – An agreement between the smaller and nationalist parties (we […]