When you say the wheel is brand new, does this mean it's the first time it has been on the bike? If so, do you have the old one and what happens if you put it back on? Also, we've probably all done the forwards means forwards thing.... does the arrow on this wheel as fitted right now point forward when it's at the top, not at the bottom?
If it's new and the first time fitting, and it's the right way around, if the spacers are on the right sides, I'd be asking questions about what it was supposed to fit. The disc looks to fit snugly between the pads from what can be seen in the pic (have you tried rotating it to see if it's binding or not?), so unless you have the wheel or the spacers the wrong way around, it would seem that removing that gap would cause significant issues with the brakes unless perhaps the pads have shifted over to accommodate the misalignment.
I'm pretty sure that the fatter spacer goes on the left (as you are looking at it) so if you do have the spacers and the wheel the right way around, looking at what you have there, if it's a brand new, previously unfitted wheel, I'd be suspecting that as the culprit....
