Reader Letters

Is it really worth throwing the country into chaos just to save a fiver on a pair of shoes? Brexiteers say they want us out of the customs union to strike new trade deals so we can get cheaper footwear. Only problem is, leaving the customs union will be hugely disruptive and costly and the […]

Here’s a question for the next time you are in conversation with a confirmed Brexiteer. Ask them how being in the EU, has in concrete terms, restricted their lifestyle or made them materially poorer. Not how it has adversely affected some unspecified people somewhere else or people in a survey organised by the Daily Express, […]

This reader would like to issue an apology to the United Kingdom. Dear United Kingdom, Please accept my personal apology for the current creature occupying our highest government office. He is a disaster of major proportions. He is an ignorant, egotistical, cowardly, narcissistic, bloviating, sexual predating, misogynistic, uneducated, congenital lying, criminal miscreant. He has no […]

Reading the runes is tricky, but it appears that Theresa May could be more courageous than many of us thought, as she seemingly tries to avoid the hardest of Brexits. Criticism from Johnson and Gove suggests she might be positioning herself on the side of the angels after all. She should be brave and think […]

I’ve just had ten days in France and North Italy. As I was wearing my EU/UK badge, I got Brexit chat – three types. My summaries may be useful to readers who discuss more vigorously than this octogenarian. (1) Leavers in the group I travelled with were polite but firm: ‘Bureaucratic gravy train’; ‘Under the […]

Last Friday on the Daily Politics I watched a rather smug Peter Bone and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown discussing the mental stresses caused by the Brexit process on Remainers. The debate was good-natured and none the worse for that. Bone clearly feels the war is won and he can afford to be comfortable with his vision of […]

I have just done Kay Burley and Jacob Rees-Mogg a favour: earlier this month, at the multi-millionaire’s imposing country house, the pair had an cosy, giggly 25-minute interview whose obvious intention was to depict Jacob as ‘just like the rest of us, really’. An absurd concept, but a real gift for him. So I have […]

Let’s cast our minds forward. Parliament has ruled out the ‘no-deal Brexit’ and we’ve had a People’s Vote on Mrs May’s final Brexit deal. She lost: the people support the status quo. Then what happens? Well, the next morning, Mrs May is still PM and she says: ‘I delivered on my promise to get the […]

The debate continues around this political cartoon. The Sajid Javid cartoon we printed in The New European last week. Image: The New European. – Credit: Archant Why I laughed at Neil Kerber’s cartoon had nothing to do with racism. It was because, although the Windrush issue, thanks to the Guardian, had been public knowledge for […]

Much has been said over the BBC’s possible Brexit bias, but what about Sky News, asks a reader. Much has been said over the BBC’s possible Brexit bias, but what about Sky News’ Sunrise? What is the point of having two guests in its Paper Review, if articles are shared between the pundits for them […]

Earlier this year The New European published a letter by me about an negative experience I had in Essex at Christmas. I – a woman of colour, domiciled in France – felt racially harassed at Southend airport when returning to Britain to visit my children. I attributed this, and still do, to the toxic climate […]

The will of the people want to stay within the Customs Union with the EU, argues Paul Smith. On last week’s Question Time, Martin Lewis, the undisputed master of figures and logic, made a crucial point on an imaginary referendum about staying in the customs union: ‘One would assume most Remainers were in favour of […]

It seems that, having done its dirty work, UKIP is content to fade into the background. Even to the extent of likening itself to a potentially recurrent strain of plague bacillus that will surface again in the event of an ‘unsatisfactory’ Brexit agreement. Having gleefully spooked David Cameron into calling what has subsequently come to […]

I voted for Brexit. I never expected it to actually happen. I voted for Brexit. I never expected it to actually happen. When I ticked the box marked No, I believed my vote would be a stern warning to the Eurocrats that their power had extended too far and that they were meddling too much […]

If the Government is willing to admit defeat on our train system how can they be trusted to sort out Brexit, asks a reader. When the government cheerfully admits that it can not even run a workable and fair rail ticketing system via Network Rail, why should we have any faith that it can develop […]

The post-referendum debate is centred around the rapatriation of powers to Westminster and London. Tom Parkin says the regions are being ignored. I live in Evesham, a rural town in Worcestershire that voted by 58% to leave the European Union in June 2016. Evesham’s heritage is agricultural, but its economy less so. Like much of […]

With UKIP’s voters returning to the Conservative party, Michael Culver argues it’s no longer a party for right-thinking people. I write on behalf of my wife and myself to express our total agreement with the views expressed by Roger Adams in his letter (TNE #90). The Conservative party today is no longer one for any […]

Labour’s position on illegal immigrants sums up the contradictions tying Labour in knots over Brexit, writes Graham Milne… We must all thank Diane Abbott for her part in weakening Theresa May by removing Amber Rudd, but her inability to coherently outline Labour’s position on illegal immigrants sums up the contradictions tying Labour in knots over […]

There are two choices for Amber Rudd now she has resigned, writes Isobel Wheeler… Do nothing and return to the Cabinet in a more minor role in six months to a year. Or, enjoying the freedom of the backbenches, make the case that British membership of the customs union must continue in order to avoid […]

Why didn’t the BBC report the House of Lords’ victory over the Customs Union on their morning news, asks David Perrin. In the time I spent watching and listening to the BBC Breakfast programme on the morning of April 19, there was no mention of the very important amendment victory the Lords concerning remaining in […]

A survey of EU companies with a British base reveals 46% will be reducing UK capacity, explains Magdalena Williams. The list of industries either moving, considering a move, reducing capacity or shutting up shop altogether because of Brexit uncertainty and rising costs due to the weak pound, now stands at: Airlines, car manufacturers (2.7 million […]

A Brexiteer writes to The New European with a request… I, who voted Leave, read TNE avidly every week, not as Alastair Campbell said to ‘know thine enemy’ but rather because your other cultural and political articles are generally excellent and reflective of the broad cultural bond we have with Europe, and long may these […]

If Brexit happens next March it won’t be the end – just the ‘end of the beginning’, explains Will Goble. The best analogy I’ve yet heard about the lunacy of Brexit is from an anonymous poster in the comments section of an online newspaper. It goes something like this: A man is driving at speed […]

Right-wing Tories will be furious, Boris Johnson and Liam Fox will resign, and we’ll stay close to Europe. It’s a no-brainer isn’t it? With David ‘Two Brains’ Willetts seeking to persuade the government to pursue a less isolationist post-Brexit policy, the time is surely ripe for the less cerebrally-endowed politician – Lord Lawson, Theresa May […]

As an EU national who has resided in UK for the past eight years, I will be using the ballot box in May to articulate my discontent with Brexit. Although local elections concern local matters, as an EU national I only have the local elections at my disposal to signal my disagreement with the Conservative […]

Alastair Campbell (TNE #90) reminds us of just how extraordinary it is that someone so clearly unsuited to holding public office as Boris Johnson has managed to gain such a strong foothold in politics. Gary Neville summed it up for me when, following yet another bit of foot-in-mouth idiocy as the foreign secretary suggested we […]

Both sides of Brexit think the BBC is biased towards the other side, as Chris Grey’s excellent piece points out. This may indicate that the Beeb is doing the right thing. So let’s just cut to the chase and stop hammering the BBC for showing or not showing any partiality during the referendum debate. What […]

For EU citizens who had been offered the right to remain in the UK the Government has failed to ‘take back control’, explains Paul Stein. In June 2017 TNE printed my letter responding to Theresa May’s ‘fair and generous offer’ to EU citizens living in the UK. Given that my wife entered the UK in […]