Political journalist welcomes in European sailor (7)

I believe the answer is:

mariner

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'sailor' is the definition.
(mariner means a sailor)

'political journalist welcomes in european' is the wordplay.
'political journalist' becomes 'marr' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'welcomes' means one lot of letters goes inside another (in sense of 'invites in').
'european' becomes 'e' (abbreviation e.g. EU).
'in'+'e'='ine'
'marr' placed around 'ine' is 'MARINER'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for mariner that I've seen before include "Bluejacket" , "Sea-goer, ancient in the poem" , "Seaman" , "Seafarer, old salt" , "Man of the sea" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.

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