8

August 19-August 25, 2016

AGENDA

MUSIC

I loved Morrissey
for years...but now
I hate what he says
EMILY REYNOLDS
on how the former
Smiths frontmans
politics are
alienating fans
Aged 13 and newly converted to
vegetarianism, the discovery of The
Smiths album Meat is Murder was
genuinely revelatory for me. It kickstarted
a nearly 10-year-long obsession with
Morrissey, the bands charismatic and
pugnacious lead singer an obsession that
carried on well into my early-20s.
Until last year I continued to travel up
and down the country and sometimes
abroad to see gigs and meet up with
friends Id met queuing for the front row or
talking about Morrissey with online. I met
one of my best friends several years ago via
an annual Morrissey meet-up, and last
year we went to Barcelona ostensibly for a
holiday but actually to attend a gig in a tiny
Spanish nightclub, queueing for hours in
the sun to get near the front. I found solace,
comfort and community in the spirited
spite of Mozs eloquent lyrics, and even got
a few of them incorporated into tattoos.
So, as a proud Remain voter, its more
than a little disheartening to hear
Morrisseys latest comments on Brexit.
Its been shocking to witness the refusal
of the UK news media to be fair enough to
accept the final decision of the people,
simply because the decision does not suit
the establishment, he told Israeli website
Walla. The BBC persistently smear people
who voted leave, condemning such people
as being irresponsible, drunken racists.
Id actually love to say that it feels like a
betrayal, but its just one more
unsurprising addition to a long line of
reactionary, poorly thought through
statements from the singer. In recent weeks
alone, Morrissey has claimed that the
media hate George Galloway and Nigel
Farage, who he bafflingly describes as
liberal educators, because they respect
equal freedom for all people, and criticised
London mayor Sadiq Khan for eating
halal-butchered beings.
Vegetarianism is great, and animal rights
are obviously a noble cause, but bringing
Khans Muslim faith to the fore sounds an
awful lot like racism, making it a little rich
for Morrissey to describe the (alleged)
condemnation of Leave voters as
irresponsible racists.
In 2007, he said he felt like England had
been thrown away, and complained that
if you walk through Knightsbridge on any
bland day of the week, you wont hear an
English accent Youll hear every accent
under the sun apart from the British
accent.
In 2013 Moz stated that he had nearly
voted for UKIP, and hes previously
referred to Chinese people as a subspecies
because of their treatment of animals
hardly the best person to judge whether
someone is being falsely accused of racism.
Its a very long way from his 1990
declaration that there are some bad people
on the right.
In any case, though many of those
who voted Leave arent racist, what
pro-Brexiters have done is stand alongside
campaigners who certainly are, and theres
the question of whether a vote for Leave
was also an implicit legitimation of that
racism. Since the EU referendum, hundreds
of incidents of hate crimes have been
reported, with many perpetrators telling
victims to go back to your own country.

Its not hard to see a link between this Us vs

Them mentality and the result of the
referendum, with freshly emerging racist
narratives vindicating the views of many
who had previously kept their opinions
silent and who now feel empowered to air
them publicly and sometimes violently.
The murder of Jo Cox, which came at the
height of the Brexit debate, should also
have served as a stark reminder of what
was at stake when we decided whether to
stay in the European Union; a staunch
campaigner for the rights of refugees,
immigrants and other minorities, Cox
represented the multicultural values that
genuinely do make Britain great.
This beautifully diverse and multicultural
Britain is not the one present in Morrisseys
work, though; throughout his career, hes
wistfully depicted the country as a proud
but fading island, adrift without identity.
The Queen is Dead more or less screamed
there is something rotten in the state of
Salford, and later songs like Everyday Is
Like Sunday and Come Back to Camden
painted yearning portraits of an England
that had long disappeared and probably
never existed to begin with. At heart,
Morrisseys idea of what Britain means is

entirely romanticised and closer to fairytale

than reality. It would be unobjectionable if
such views didnt have an impact on the
lives of so many people.
Morrisseys anti-Brexit stance is also
personally hypocritical; his parents were
Irish immigrants to Manchester, and he
himself has lived all over the world,
including recent stints in Italy. Such
freedom of movement will probably still be
available to him after Brexit, simply
because hes famous and fairly wealthy; to
deny that to others, especially those who
dont have the same material and political
privileges as him, is shortsighted at best
and deeply selfish at worst.
I still find his position baffling one of
the reasons people love Morrissey so much
is because his lyrics speak so directly to
those who feel as if they are outsiders, and
his large gay and Mexican fan bases show
how powerful that draw is. Indeed, his song
Mexico criticises racism in America; if
youre rich and youre white youll be
alright. Its a sentiment at odds with his
support of UKIP, who are often considered
to be exclusionary and racist, and highlights
the inherent contradiction in many
arguments for Brexit.

Although Nigel Farage, who Morrissey

says he likes a great deal, might like to see
himself as a political black sheep, hes a
millionaire public school-educated
ex-banker not an outsider in any real
sense.
Its a stark comparison to those who really
are oppressed and who really are outsiders
the migrants and refugees that Brexit will
most severely impact who Morrissey
seems completely unable to defend because
of his desperation to cling onto an idealised
version of England. Whether Morrisseys
criticism of the BBCs coverage of Brexit is
to do with his adolescent fixation on
insulting authority figures or whether it
really is about politics, hes only adding
to a damaging narrative that alienates those
in our society who most need to be
supported.
Will I always love Morrisseys music? Of
course. But when it comes to politics, hed
be best taking his own advice... Get Off The
Stage.

Emily Reynolds is a freelance writer for

Vice, New York magazine and The Guardian,
among others. Her book A Beginners Guide
To Losing Your Mind is out next year.

The New European