News and Opinion

Among some of those who can see Brexit is a disaster there is a gloomy fatalism about letting it happen anyway. That is a big mistake. ‘Brexit is clearly a terrible idea. But it has to happen.’ My heart sank when I read the headline over John Harris’s recent Guardian column, and not merely because […]

The club in Turin is a football club quite unlike any other – an institution which combines excellence and ugliness Italian Alessandro Del Piero playing for Juventus Turin. (Photo by Christian Liewig/TempSport/Corbis via Getty Images) – Credit: Corbis via Getty Images For a club started on a bench in Turin by a bunch of schoolkids, […]

After fundraising curry night in support of the Grenfell victims, our resident foodie gets creative with the leftovers – and some Aperol Spritz There was no greater example of the day after the night before than Sunday past. The first Saturday of July had been one of those contradictory collisions of community concern and corporate […]

The Vespa and Lambretta are both characterised by style, beauty and the promise of freedom. But they have divided the world into two equally fanatical set of followers. 1957 Lambretta LD 150. (Photo by National Motor Museum/Heritage Images/Getty Images) – Credit: Getty Images Vespa or Lambretta. You’re not really allowed to be a fan of […]

Just because Donald Trump doesn’t care about it, doesn’t mean climate change isn’t already having an impact in the US. The Colorado River, one of the longest rivers in the United States, is gradually shrinking. This is partly a result of overuse by municipalities and seasonal drought. The other reason is global warming. The decline […]

The idea that the British establishment is predicated on civilised values of ‘fairness’, ‘openness’ and ‘transparency’ is beginning to unravel. I was born and raised in Kampala, Uganda, a British protectorate until October 9, 1962, when the country became independent. The Union Jack came down but most Brits stayed on. One of them was Mr […]

The fight against the menace of modern day piracy must start on the land, not the sea This article originally appeared on The Conversation. The Gulf of Aden has been vulnerable to piracy since 2008 when pirates escalated hijack and ransom attempts on merchant ships. Ransom demands skyrocketed to millions of dollars. But after a […]

For some in Europe Brexit offers an opportunity to prize business away from London and the UK. Vultures don’t always circle their next meal. Some of them get the plane straight to Heathrow. Others don’t have to leave the ground, arriving at St Pancras on the Eurostar from Paris or Brussels. Delegates from cities and […]

London’s economy is ‘wobbling’ due to the aftershock of the Britain’s decision to back Brexit, according to a new report. Research by think tank the Centre for London concludes that the looming EU exit could be a factor in reducing numbers of Europeans coming to the capital to work, a slowdown in job creation, declining […]

In era of Trump, Brexit and social media, it is harder than ever for children to avoid politics. Is that a good thing? My nine-year-old daughter’s birthday… We’ve had the cake, the surfeit of presents and the questionable snacks, and now it’s time for big brother’s puppet show. I pop out of the room, expecting […]

Spiritual leader of the Leavers; cult figure on social media; future prime minister? It’s been a good week for fans of haunted drainpipes, Victorian undertakers, or cartoon giraffes with monocles that drop from their eyes every time they see an uncouth hippo. Jacob Rees-Mogg is back in the news, and now our only hope is […]

Legacy publishers such as the Mail and the Sun are condemning the environment they create There used to be an easy way to tell if legacy news publishers were talking positively or negatively about the internet. If they prefaced it with ‘online-‘, it was good – online banking, for instance. But if it was preceded […]

Things are now so grim in Brexit Britain – there is no hero riding to the rescue – but it’s not too late to rethink I expected, by now, to be coming round to the idea of Brexit. A lot of my friends were Outers – clever folk with whom I agree on much else. […]

British broadcasting’s big hitter who is still awaiting his rightful BBC inheritance. The writing is on the wall for the grumpy old men who have dominated the airwaves ever since Sir Robin Day first snapped impatiently at an unsuspecting politician. In the same way that Theresa May won the election but has clearly been mortally […]

Really Theresa May? Consensus? With the ‘saboteurs’, the ‘enemies of the people’? Say what you like about George Orwell, but the man was even-handed in his scorn for political thuggery: having been shot in the throat while fighting as a volunteer against Franco’s fascists in the Spanish Civil War, he then came home and wrote […]

Chancellor Philip Hammond has launched a ferocious counter-attack on cabinet rivals who have been briefing against him claiming Brexiteers are behind the plots. He accused them of trying to undermine his attempts to secure a Brexit deal which protected jobs and the economy. Hammond has been hit by a series of press reports claiming the […]

How the world’s leaders are failing in the face of the Russian threat. Putin and Trump – Credit: Archant Last week’s G20 summit in Hamburg was overshadowed by the much-anticipated first meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Expectations were so low for Trump in this encounter that it’s almost impressive how he managed to […]

It’s becoming clear what the British people want from Brexit. But they are not being given the option, says former PM Tony Blair This was on any basis an extraordinary election, unique in recent British political experience and with major political consequence. The country is deeply divided: between young and old; metropolitan and outside the […]

Forget the social media whirlwinds around media bias, impartiality is overrated As Britain continues to career head-long towards the cliff-edge that is Brexit, we can no longer afford the luxury of so-called broadcasting ‘impartiality.’ We’ve just had a mini social media whirlwind, puffed up by the announcement that the Head of the BBC in Westminster […]

A new Big Lie is currently entering the Big Lie lexicon. It is that 51.9% having voted Leave last June 23 – National Self-Harm Day – the number has now risen to over 80%. When the Brexit pathology is studied, hopefully by historians examining how the UK found its reverse gear and pulled back from […]

Cock ups, chaos and calamity – Brexit is a shitstorm like no other. We pick over the carcass of another rotting week of Brexit madness 10) Theresa May ‘Only the Conservatives can deliver a successful Brexit’ – remember that? It seems Theresa May is flip flopping on yet another election promise. She has now made […]

The New European is a unique newspaper; launched in the heat of the Brexit vote – and designed to last only four weeks – we are still here, more than a year later, and thanks to our growing community of readers, we are thriving. If this is your first time, then welcome. If you are […]

The Government’s actions based on the 2016 referendum’s outcome were politically illegitimate It is plain to every impartial observer that Brexit is a disaster, and promises yet worse. The harm to the UK, already happening and already mounting in ever larger quantities, is as clear as day. In any rational order a stop would have […]

Prime Minister Theresa May has become a much diminished figure on the world stage Whether you care for Theresa May or not, the sight right now of the PM of Great Britain on the world stage should give none of us pleasure. She has become a diminished figure. Next to the Queen she represents the […]

A vanity not evident in his years on the fringe has become visible. A retired MP whose left wing credentials are as good as those of his old friend, Jeremy Corbyn, sums up the Labour leader this way. ‘He’s a thoroughly decent human being who has led his life according to his principles. To say […]

Brexit minister Steve Baker appears to have a similar distain for experts as Michael Gove. He has dismissed concerns made by Royal College of Radiologists over the impact quitting Euratom will have on cancer treatment as ‘not correct’. RCR has issued a fresh warning that anything hitting the supply and transport of radioactive isotopes widely […]

It has been a very tough few months for the UK with terrorist atrocities and the horror of the Grenfell Tower. So it is perhaps not surprising that Theresa May has admitted to shedding a tear … although it was the loss of her majority that got the PM blubbing. May said she shed a […]

There are encouraging signs for bears across Europe. But for one subspecies – numbering only around 50 – the situation is particularly perilous. Efforts are being made to find out more about this isolated population right in the heart of Italy. Eurasian Brown Bear (Francis C. Franklin / CC-BY-SA-3.0) – Credit: Archant It’s hard to […]