News and Opinion

All the action from Question Time as Britain gears up for the Brexit Election. .

Angela Merkel has said the UK has ‘illusions’ about the realities of Brexit and insisted talks on the UK’s divorce bill from the EU must be dealt with before trade negotiations can begin. The German chancellor’s firm stance puts her on a collision course with Theresa May’s Hard Brexit Governemnt and the comments came as […]

All the news, updates and reactino on April 27. .

Listen, get angry and share Boris Johnson appeared on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning. We suspect it will be the last we hear of him during this election since his combination of Etonian arrogance, abject lies, obfuscation and self-serving twisting makes for a far better Remain advocacy than most of the Opposition. If you […]

All the news, reaction and updates on April 26. .

When you think about it, Theresa May’s decision to call a snap election should come as no surprise. We were once on Question Time together. Before the show, she paced the waiting area like many of the politicians do. You have to be careful on QT if you’re an elected official. One slip, and you […]

With the clock ticking not only on Article 50, but also a UK general election, is Ireland the part of Europe with most to fear from Brexit’s fallout? Ireland has long been seen as one of Britain’s closest friends in the EU. Not only do the two countries have longstanding cultural and political ties, which […]

The Prime Minister believes she holds all the cards as the country embarks on a General Election. But Labour could still spring a surprise at the ballot box Theresa May has sprung an early election, breaking her earlier pledges not to, and there are three reasons why. • She knows the Brexit negotiations will very […]

The Liberal Democrat leader is the one Number 10 increasingly fears Cometh the hour, cometh the man. A hoary old cliché, true enough, but for one man in particular Theresa May’s mother of all U-turns means opportunity knocks. Step forward, Tim Farron, leader of the Lib Dems and principled champion of the 48%. OK, he’s […]

MPs would be given the chance to halt a Brexit deal secured by a Labour government, Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer has said. But outlining Labour’s Brexit strategy Sir Keir again ruled out a second referendum. He instead insisted that if Theresa May was ousted from Number 10 Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour would give MPs the […]

All the election news, reaction and updates on April 25. .

I can remember a time when young people were fired by a righteous anger. Now that they are so cosseted by mainstream culture, the flame has gone out Who but a reckless fool would make cast iron predictions about an unexpected General Election that our U-turning Prime Minister vowed not to call? What else is […]

One of France’s most powerful political figures wasn’t on the ballot paper – he was more than 1,500 miles away, at home in the Kremlin Vladimir just did it. Without any fuss, he invited Francis to dinner at one of his dachas – Novo Ogaryovo, near Moscow. It was spring 2013, the gesture was a […]

All the updates, reaction and analysis on Monday April 24. .

Labour could still shock Theresa May at the ballot box. But Corbyn needs to up his game on Brexit In the immediate aftermath of Theresa May’s election bombshell there was confusion in Westminster. No-one saw it coming and only a small inner circle of cohorts were privy to the Prime Minister’s plan. There were no […]

Pro-EU centrist Emmanuel Macron will face far-right Marine Le Pen in a head-to-head battle for the French presidency. Macron, who quit current president Francois Hollande’s Socialists only last year ago to launch a new party, led the way with 23.7% of the first round vote, according to an exit poll by Ipsos and Sopra Steria. […]

Brexit raises more and more questions for its backers. Yet they still have no answers What are Brexiters going to make of the Turkish referendum? Turkey has turned itself into a dictatorship on the basis of a miniscule referendum majority – a majority of votes cast on the day, note, not of the electorate as […]

Follow all the developments and reactions on Sunday April 23. .

The game is back on… and you have to ask why? Well I did NOT see that coming. Literally; as you may even remember, in an early column I dismissed the notion of Theresa May calling a snap election before 2020 as I could see no electoral advantage for her in doing so. What’s changed? […]

… they never do, says The New European’s election editor At least Theresa May deserves a round of applause for pulling off a real surprise. Even her cabinet did not know. Those of us who saw her as a risk-averse, Anglo-Catholic vicar’s daughter, raised in the gentler, Ovaltine conservatism of small town Oxfordshire, never spotted […]

Well, we now know at least one thing about our inscrutable Prime Minister. We know she is prepared to do a u-turn on something she stated categorically would not happen – a snap General Election. Who knows where the u-turns will end! We can but hope. Actually, now Theresa May has taken this enormous political […]

We pick out the worst Leavers of a week in which people came together and united behind the opportunities which lie ahead. Probably. The UKIP Paw Patrol (NEW ENTRY) When a UKIP supporter shouts for his bulldog to come, it doesn’t necessarily mean he wants the hound to move closer. A YouGov poll has found […]

Live election coverage including news, reaction and analysis on Saturday April 22. The leaders are set to hit the campaign trail hard during the first weekend of the election campaign.

Tony Blair has called for a ‘movement’ of pro-EU voters to prevent Theresa May getting a mandate for a ‘Brexit at any cost’. The former prime minister said the opinion polls, which put Labour as many as 24 points behind the Tories, ‘appear to be definitive’ in pointing towards a big Tory victory on June […]

From putting up posters to ward off the forces of Brexit to encouraging young people to vote, we pick 8 easy ways to make a difference for GE2017 1) REGISTER TO VOTE Only 66% of Brits voted in 2015 and there have been suggestions that, because of poll fatigue, 2017 could see the lowest turnout […]

Editor-at-large Alastair Campbell issues a cri de couer for the pro-European cause This is an election like no other I can remember. First, there is no obvious reason why we are having it. Second, there appears to be near universal agreement as to what the outcome will be. Democracy UK style 2017. Weird. Last Saturday, […]

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron has said Theresa May’s appetite for a Hard Brexit makes Nigel Farage look like a moderate. Speaking in two key Remain seats he added that May was using ‘bogus’ Brexit arguments to justify an early election but actually called a snap election to capitalise on Labour’s woes. Far from being […]

The UK would be welcomed back with open arms by the EU if it turned its back on Brexit after the General Election, the European Parliament’s president has said. Antonio Tajani said all 27 other countries in the European Union would be in favour if a new government decided to reverse the Article 50 process […]