Brexit
Does Britain have Bregret? Don’t believe it
In the build-up to the tenth anniversary of the EU referendum, we’ve heard lots of claims about Bregret. There are…
The Brexit decade: was it worth it?
It may not feel or sound like it but Keir Starmer is a born-again Brexiteer. His achievements in office may…
Britain must finally embrace gene editing
Around the turn of the century, the world embarked on an experiment. The Americas embraced the genetic modification of crops;…
Brexit was a huge opportunity shamefully mishandled
The Damascene moment in my personal Brexit journey came not when my pen hovered over the referendum ballot on 23…
Nothing works: The End of Everything, by John M. Harrison, reviewed
Set in ‘one of the well-known seasonal waterside art towns of Kent’, Harrison’s novel is both a bracing vision of environmental collapse and a post-Brexit cri de coeur
The EU can’t save Labour
Amid the rubble of this government lies a tattered standard – the regimental colours of the current Labour party. The…
Letters: Let children drink
Chagos stupidity Sir: To British Establishment watchers, Michael Gove’s dissection of the dubious and devious machinations of Jonathan Powell, Richard…
A decade on, Brexit still means Brexit
It’s been almost a full decade since Britain voted to leave the European Union. Inside Labour, whatever words are muttered…
Nick Thomas-Symonds: ‘The Brexit architects essentially ran away’
With his owlish expression and affable manner, Nick Thomas-Symonds looks more like the academic that he was, rather than the…
I regret my intolerance over Brexit
Cannabis smoke lingering along the sidewalks of Washington D.C. was the most palpable fruit of liberty since my last visit…
The new power players running the world
An Italian former political adviser warns of the tech bros and autocrats upending the international order while our elected leaders appease and procrastinate
Relations with Europe provide the key to British postwar politics
Tom McTague shows how the two most consequential decisions for Britain over the past 80 years have been entering the European Union in 1973 and leaving it in 2020
Don’t bring back British Rail
The theme of my holiday reading has been the insidious ways in which the vanities and fetishes of rulers harm…
Farage, flags and the forgotten English
The flag-raisings in towns and cities across the country are an inevitable consequence of elites’ seeming preference for every flag…
Letters: Britain sold its fishing industry down the river
Hard reset Sir: Once again we must debate Brexit (‘Starmer vs the workers’, 24 May). The ‘reset’ agreement does give…
Starmer vs the workers: the real Brexit betrayal
Keir Starmer looked blank. The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, seemed confused. Only the old Stalinist Seumas Milne seemed really to…
Labour must learn to love Brexit
The problem with Keir Starmer’s approach to Brexit is that it fundamentally misunderstands the country. It isn’t that the Leave-voting…
The battle over fishing is a sideshow
So far, so routine. Labour wants to update and if possible upgrade the United Kingdom’s arrangements with our immediate neighbour…
Britain is enjoying another Brexit dividend
Has there ever been a day when Brexit seemed such a good idea? The story of Brexit began to change…
Should you be arrested for reading The Spectator?
Regular readers will know that I have an obsession with home burglaries. Specifically those occasions when a burglar goes into…
Why don’t we know how many people are in Britain?
How many people live in Britain? You would think there would be a straightforward answer, but it eludes some of…
Britain is losing friends – and making enemies
Whatever way you voted in 2016, I suspect that many of us have the same image of post-Brexit Britain. It…
Is Europe really faring better than Britain?
Five years ago this week, Boris Johnson was celebrating the achievement of leaving the European Union and wondering how he…
I hope you didn’t sign that petition
Did you sign it, then? And if so, what were your expectations? That Sir Keir Starmer would look at the…
A post-Brexit entertainment: The Proof of My Innocence, by Jonathan Coe, reviewed
A satire on radical economic libertarianism combines with a cosy Cotswold murder mystery in an ingenious series of stories within stories
