Exclusive

In the wake of the subs-postmaster scandal, WILL SELF encounters an actual criminal at the Post Office and ponders the hierarchy of crime I ran into X in the post office queue – but then regular readers will know this is where some of MM’s most significant encounters occur; at least when it comes to […]

The news that John Bercow was joining the Labour Party came as much a surprise to Sir Keir Starmer as everyone else.

TIM WALKER on an unusual theatrical production, with an intriguing premise The premise is intriguing: an unacknowledged daughter of Boris Johnson is on a quest to find out what he’s really like. Charlotte Evans, the journalist and theatre performer, had initially been commissioned by the BBC to make My Dad Boris, which comprised serious interviews […]

No analysis of the state of Britain today can be possible without an understanding of why Labour finds itself in its current position. Its failure to properly address prejudice in the party before the last election are at the heart of that. FRANCIS BECKETT has had access to insider accounts of the key meetings under […]

In a special report on the anniversary of the 2019 election, Francis Beckett pieces together the inside moments and key decisions – or lack of them – which sealed Labour’s fate. A year ago, a hard Brexit and an 80 seat parliamentary majority for Boris Johnson was the nightmare scenario which few expected. Johnson was […]

Neil Kinnock is laughing heartily. “Oh God! I never knew about that,” he says. I’ve just informed him that there’s a punk band that plays around Cardiff by the name of Surreal Kinnock. “Bloody hell,” he laughs. “My wife thinks she’s been married to him for 50-odd years.” We speak by phone, Kinnock from his […]

In an exclusive extract from his new book, investigative journalist Peter Geoghegan looks at the catastrophic results of undisclosed funding. A book about the dark money that is warping our politics could begin in many places. Our starting point might be a tour of Westminster, stopping to peer through the windows of the Georgian townhouses […]

So precipitous has been the government’s fall in popularity that Boris Johnson would lose an election held tomorrow, says expert pollster PETER KELLNER. Boris Johnson would lose an election held today. Despite holding a steady four-point lead in recent polls, the Conservatives would lose around 70 seats. They would remain the largest party in parliament, […]

The Liberal Democrat leadership hopeful on working with Labour, rejoining the EU and where the party needs to pitch itself Layla Moran is cooped up in her flat as the Liberal Democrats embark on one of the oddest party leadership elections of the modern era. Labour’s recent contest was cut short by Covid-19, but Keir […]

The Liberal Democrats are to take the first steps to try to force the government’s hand to seek a Brexit transition period extension. The opposition party will seek to put forward a bill in the House of Commons next month requiring the government to seek a two-year extension of the Brexit implementation period from Brussels. […]

The government is continuing with plans for a much-mocked £120m ‘Festival of Brexit’ in 2022 despite the coronavirus crisis, The New European can reveal. While all cultural life in the country is currently frozen as a result of the outbreak and the subsequent lockdown, the Department for Digital. Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) says it […]

FRANCIS BECKETT talks to Labour leadership candidate Keir Starmer about the prospects of the UK rejoining the EU, Jeremy Corbyn and the proudest moments of his legal career. A couple of years ago I met Keir Starmer at a lunch and someone asked if he saw himself as the next leader of the Labour Party. […]

In a frank, honest letter to the Labour leader ALASTAIR CAMPBELL says he no longer wants to be readmitted to the party he’s spent his life fighting for, and asks Jeremy Corbyn to seriously consider whether he’s really up to the challenges ahead. Dear Jeremy, Britain is in a moment of peril, the UK facing […]

In an exclusive extract from his new book about Iran, former foreign secretary JACK STRAW explores the country’s doomed dynamics, which are pulling the regime in a different way to the people. Campaigners stand beside lit candles on a birthday cake outside the Iranian embassy whilst calling upon Iran to release jailed British grandfather, Kamal […]

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL on being expelled from the Labour Party by an email without a name, and how he and Tony Blair nearly kicked out Jeremy Corbyn. It was then-chief whip Hilary Armstrong who suggested to Tony Blair that, given the many hundreds of times Jeremy Corbyn had voted against Labour policy, it might be time […]

Mandrake can disclose the BBC has a Remainer register of talking heads it deems to be ‘unsound’ on the most divisive issue of our times. ‘What’s sinister is the extent of research that’s gone into it and how it extends beyond the political arena into other worlds such as show business,’ a corporation journalist tells […]

Brexit is stripping cash from the arts with government funding for some of Britain’s most iconic museums plummeting since the referendum, The New European can reveal. Figures released under Freedom of Information laws show that eight out of 16 government-sponsored museums have seen their grant in aid funding fall since 2016/2017. 12 of the 16 […]

Government departments are scrambling to employ crisis experts as the chances of the UK crashing out of the European Union increase. Currently the Ministry of Housing wants three ‘resilience advisers’ who would ‘provide support to the local resilience community to develop, test and exercise plans for the mitigation of any disruption following our exit from […]

In the second part of our exclusive serialisation of Alastair Campell’s diaries, it’s 2008 and Gordon Brown is in No. 10 but looking far from secure. Campbell is out of government, but under pressure to return. Meanwhile, close friend Philip Gould calls with dreadful news. Tuesday January 29, 2008 PG [Philip Gould, political pollster and […]

One of Labour’s first moves would be to guarantee the rights of 3 million EU citizens if it was elected to government, Sir Keir Starmer has told The New European. The shadow Brexit secretary was speaking to the newspaper’s podcast host Richard Porritt. ‘The first thing we would do is unilaterally guarantee the rights of […]

In part one of our exclusive extracts from his latest diaries, ALASTAIR CAMPBELL gives the inside story on the final days of the last Labour government and what led to a defeat from which the party has yet to recover. Alastair Campbell talking about one his latest books. Picture: Nigel Sutton – Credit: Nigel Sutton […]

Brexit, and a careless attitude towards British influence in NATO, will consign the country to the margins and weaken the cornerstone of our defence, argues GEORGE ROBERTSON, the former NATO Secretary General The government claims that NATO will remain the cornerstone of Britain’s defence and that fact will not be affected by Brexit. As with […]

Why ‘no deal’ doesn’t work as a negotiating tactic, says JONATHAN POWELL – the man who helped negotiate peace in Northern Ireland At the beginning of the negotiations more than a year ago the Brexiteers breezily assured us a negotiated deal with the EU would be a piece of cake. It was in the Europeans’ […]

The centre ground of politics which New Labour once inhabited is gone. Tony Blair argues it must rise again to fight Brexit, the Conservatives and even the Labour Party https://twitter.com/tonyblairoffice/status/791987546020511744 Not since I became politically active four decades ago, has clarity of thinking been in such urgent demand or such short supply. Britain hurtles towards […]

The New European says: Tony Blair’s call to mobilise and organise against the stupidity of a headlong rush towards a blind Brexit is a searing broadside against both the dogma of Theresa May’s government and a Labour Party leadership too fixated on internal power struggles to be an effective opposition. https://twitter.com/TheNewEuropean/status/791899302960492544 When he talks of […]