The British music industry is paying the price for Brexit - Yorkshire Post Letters
From: Jas Olak, Vice Chair, Leeds for Europe, Roundhay, Leeds.
You headline a front page report ‘£1.6bbn record year for live music in UK’ (September 5). But that’s driven by large venue concerts and big name veterans such as Coldplay and Elton John.
You add that “Grassroots music continues to be hollowed out” by issues such as the cost of living crisis - with 125 smaller venues closing.
Undermined by Brexit, too. Musicians, other artists and their army of support staff can’t easily work in the European Union after freedom of movement’s removal.
A new survey by the Musicians’ Union found half (50 per cent) think touring in the EU is now economically unviable. Three-quarters (75 per cent) of respondents were able to do so before Brexit.
A July 2022 report on the House of Lords Library website says other surveys show musicians no longer going to EU countries, shrinking the size of their touring parties, changing careers and even emigrating.
Labour’s promised to negotiate better EU access for them - a rare commitment to undoing Brexit damage.
But a report in the Financial Times last week (September 4) says such a deal is unlikely in the absence of greater moves by the British government on other issues.
There’s much “managing expectations” talk in European Commission documents seen by the FT.
In its reticence to talk freely about Brexit and the harm it’s causing our country, Labour has ended up promising little by way of improvements and risks achieving even less than that.
Brexit’s worse than Labour’s ever admitted. It failed. You can’t “make it work”. Saying so now - even if it wouldn’t while in opposition - would enhance our Government’s credibility on this issue.
Then it can be bolder. After all, it’s an open door: 78 per cent of those who voted Labour two months ago would happily rejoin the EU (YouGov, July 23-24). Barely one in eight (12 per cent) object (nine per cent ‘don’t know’).
Post-Brexit “cherry picking” of EU benefits by Britain was never a realistic expectation. “They need us more than we need them” Brexitists were dishonest or deluded about the implications of leaving.
Our parent group European Movement UK is calling on the Government to “break down music’s Brexit barriers”.
There’s a petition to sign on its website. Music and other creative industries could be contributing much more to economic growth and our balance of payments.