UK's pop-up 'Remain' tabloid hasn't given up

The New European weekly chronicles Brexit impact for nearly 20,000 readers

If journalism is the first draft of history, then the initial response to the 2016 Brexit referendum is a draft that needs rewriting.

The results of that June vote－52 percent to 48 percent in favor of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union－have dominated British politics ever since. No one predicted the aftershocks, but the newspaper front pages from the "morning after" do not tell the whole story.

Amid the mixture of ecstatic reactions and stunned disbelief at then-prime minister David Cameron's subsequent resignation, there was little representation of the feelings of the 16,141,241 people who voted to "Remain". It is one of the reasons The New European came into being.

"The paper was born out of a publishing position rather than a political one, although conveniently, it coincided with my personal belief that Brexit was a disaster," the weekly's editor Matt Kelly told China Daily.

"I saw the papers and thought 'there's space in the market,' because now there was a huge new constituency who hadn't existed 24 hours earlier. They had a name－the 48 percent－we knew who they were, where they were, what they cared about, and this was a group that hadn't previously been represented at all. All the strong Leave papers had been on-message perfectly for 20 years, and I'm sure that helped carry the vote, but no one had represented this group.

"Even if the result had gone the other way, I think The New European would have happened because those people were out there. In fact, I'm surprised there weren't 10 New Europeans launched that week. It's a failure of the industry that this huge opportunity wasn't more widely recognized."

Kelly, whose regular job is head of content for Archant Media, which publishes 110 newspapers and magazines nationwide, found himself heading the new project, initially scheduled to run for just four editions.

Coming up to three years and more than 130 editions later, his extensive background in tabloid journalism combined with a contacts book full of top-quality writers－and the twists and turns of the ongoing Brexit process－have helped The New European become an established and respected media presence, with a weekly readership of around 20,000, flying the flag for Remain in an increasingly agitated journalistic landscape.

The indignation that first inspired the paper remains at its heart but, as time has passed, it has expanded its scope to take in more issues of interest to its readership.

"The paper's evolution has been quite haphazard, there's never been any great plan, but the more conscious I've been that there might be a longer-term future for a progressive center-left paper, the broader I've tried to make it," Kelly explained.

After a flourishing start-"when I got the first circulation figures, and was told we'd sold 40,000 copies of the first edition, I jumped up in the air in public and shouted, people must have thought I'd won the lottery"－the paper did suffer a dip in circulation, which made Kelly question its future, but it now has a stable and loyal readership.

Its production team and budget remain minimal, but as Brexit grows more complicated by the day, The New European's contribution to the British political debate becomes ever more valid and it has become increasingly loved and loathed.

"If you're not hated by a lot of people, then you won't be loved by a lot of people either," said Kelly. "To our readers, we bring hope: When that paper turns up, there's an emotional response, 'all hope is not yet lost'. On the other hand, we've been called traitors and have abusive letters, and I've had people say they'll track me down and beat me up, but the worst thing you can be is lukewarm."

With one reader in mind

Kelly freely admits that he edits the paper with one reader in mind－himself. "It might sound self-indulgent, but if I've produced a paper that I think is interesting, which I want to keep for the whole week to read, then I'm sure there are other people out there like me. We put things in because they're interesting."

The paper is now equally divided into heavyweight current affairs, and general European cultural and social interest content, and Kelly says its fundamental objections to Brexit from the outset have come to pose a sort of challenge.

"We saw the intractability and impossibility of Brexit from the very start, so two years ago we were saying, 'Are we missing something here?', and pointing things out," he said.

"As time has progressed, though, everything we said has come to pass and so many other people are now saying the same thing. Two years ago we had a monopoly on these opinions, now a lot of the rest of the national media is saying it too. We no longer have that space to ourselves."

Kelly admits he is preaching to the converted, and does not expect any Leavers to read his paper, let alone change their minds as a result, and says humor and strong front pages are key to getting the paper noticed.

"I can't imagine having had to watch the whole of Brexit without The New European to get me through it," he said. "If the points we made were done in a dry, broadsheet way it would be pretty hard going, so humor is important, especially on the front page illustrations. If people share the front page on social media before the paper comes out, we know we're in for a good week."

As something born out of Brexit, however, there is one question that hangs over The New European in the same way it hangs over the whole Brexit process: how long? And for all his paternal pride in the paper, Kelly is not sentimental.

"If it was a choice of limping on and dying slowly, or shutting down, I'd definitely go for the second option. Life's too short. I wouldn't persevere with something where I felt the readers didn't share my passion. But whatever happens, it's been a success."

So whatever the paper's future ends up being, Kelly is proud to say at least it made a difference.

"When the London Design Museum put our front pages in their political protest exhibition, I thought, 'we've done something people will remember'," he said.

"In 20 years when people look back and think 'What on earth was Brexit all about?', they can look at The New European and understand. And that's what journalism is all about."