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1 week ago | 
theneweuropean.co.uk | Andy Owen
Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson, has been released from prison after serving a sentence for contempt of court. Bearded and with a cross around his neck, he appeared outside HMP Woodhill to deliver a rambling 20-minute monologue for a crowd of supporters, which was streamed on X. His legal troubles are far from over, however: he is due to appear at Westminster Crown Court next week to face separate charges of harassing a journalist.
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2 weeks ago | 
theneweuropean.co.uk | Andy Owen
Last Wednesday, three British neo-Nazis were convicted of planning to carry out a terrorist attack at mosques or synagogues as part of a “race war” – yet more evidence of a growing UK terror threat from far right extremists. If you missed the story, it may have been because you were distracted by rising temperatures in the country’s ongoing and increasingly feretic debate on migration.
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1 month ago | 
theneweuropean.co.uk | Andy Owen
Pictures of Chinese nationals being held as prisoners of war in Ukraine have raised questions about the extent of China’s support to Russia. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman has stated that China is “a staunch supporter and active promoter of the peaceful resolution of the crisis”, and suggested that Chinese soldiers fighting for Russia were doing so in their private capacity. President Zelensky claims there are at least 155 Chinese citizens doing so.
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2 months ago | 
quillette.com | Andy Owen
Editor’s Note: This article was first published in Areo Magazine in May 2023. Patriotism corrupts history.—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1817)Long before the latest iteration of cancel culture, there was a punishment known as damnatio memoriae (the condemnation of a person’s memory).
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Feb 18, 2025 | 
theneweuropean.co.uk | Andy Owen
“Can we rely on the law, or does just brutal force matter?” While European leaders met at a hastily organised summit in Paris, and American and Russian diplomats made their way to Saudi Arabia for controversial peace talks, that was the question posed by Ukrainian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk in a speech in central London.
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Feb 11, 2025 | 
theneweuropean.co.uk | Andy Owen
A bright pink sign contrasts with the dull grey of north London in January. It sits outside a converted Grade II-listed Georgian house, home of the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, and announces the exhibition Breaking Lines: Futurism and the Origins of Experimental Poetry. On their honeymoon in 1947, the American collector Eric Estorick and his wife, Salome, visited the modernist Mario Sironi in Milan and bought hundreds of his drawings and pictures.
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Feb 5, 2025 | 
theneweuropean.co.uk | Andy Owen
Back in September I asked a question in these ages: after the 42m tonnes of rubble in Gaza has been shifted and the rebuilding begins, what society will emerge from the ruins? President Trump now thinks he has an answer. In a press conference with Israeli PM Netanyahu, Trump stated that he wants the US to take a “long-term ownership position” of Gaza and turn the strip into the “Riveria of the Middle East”, “an international unbelievable place” where people “from all over the world” could live.
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Jan 2, 2025 | 
thecritic.co.uk | Andy Owen
The old order is breaking apart and bad actors are taking advantage With the ending of the Long Peace, and the waning of American hegemony, we are currently witnessing wars of transition. The extent of these wars, in both duration and scale remains unknown, but in 2025, we may start to see glimpses of the new world order that will emerge in their wake. Forecasting what will happen in the coming year is a quixotic task.
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Dec 7, 2024 | 
theneweuropean.co.uk | Andy Owen
The advance of the Syrian opposition rebels led by the Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), over the last week explosively reawakened the dormant Syrian civil war. Their success inspired ordinary Syrians living across the country to take the streets and proclaim the end of the brutal dictatorship that began in 1971 when Hafez al-Assad took over the presidency of Syria and ended sometime over the weekend when his son, Bashir al-Assad, fled the country.
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Nov 19, 2024 | 
thecritic.co.uk | Andy Owen
Our technological and institutional sophistication will not eliminate conflict The war in Ukraine, the escalating crisis in the Middle East and increasing geopolitical competition between the US and China are undermining the idea that “The Long Peace” — the period from the end of the Second World War to the present day, marked by the absence of major wars between the great powers and an overall trend of declining violence — is an irreversible trend.
