Brexit is silencing British musicians

“From the Premier League and Peaky Blinders to Adele and the BBC World Service, Britain’s cultural exports showcase the best of Britain around the world,” said Nandy, and while politicians burbling on about cultural assets tends towards the grating – all a bit Hugh Grant’s “David Beckham’s right foot, David Beckham’s left foot, come to that” – it does raise a fair point. Culture is something we’re still good at. People associate us with it. The GVA (gross value added) of the creative industries was estimated at £123.03bn last year, or 5.37% of total UK GVA.

Which sort of begs the question: why are we deliberately hamstringing ourselves?

This week, a row which has been brewing for some time in the UK’s musical community spilled into the open. There has been disquiet among many musicians about why, they feel, the Musicians’ Union has been doing so little to lobby government over the hugely damaging effects Brexit has had on those wishing to tour on the continent.

Suggested Reading

Sarah Vine’s Windsor knot

Matt Withers

Brexit has been a disaster for most sectors, but especially if you previously made your living playing music across Europe. UK musicians’ touring in Europe has fallen by around 9% year-on-year since Britain left the bloc. Red tape rules: visas are required for people, carnets – international customs documents – for every single piece of equipment. You got a triangle solo on that nine-minute opus? You need a form for that (“I kind of got in a band to not fill in forms, you know what I mean?” Rick McMurray of the Britpop group Ash told me when I spoke to him about this a couple of years ago).

And Ash have a record company behind them to dot the Is and cross the Ts. What about the young musicians and artists who don’t have that level of bureaucratic support, or the funding that underpins it? For every Oasis there are a thousand bands and orchestras out there being denied the opportunities afforded to generations before them. There’s a reason Beatles biographies aren’t full of details of forms Ringo had to fill in for each of his drumsticks.

An open letter to the Musicians’ Union from a body calling itself EU Flags Team – the ones who upset the Daily Telegraph every year by handing out EU flags at the Proms – accuses it of a “disconnect with [its] membership” saying that “the silence was deafening” on Brexit at this year’s annual conference. It demands “a high-profile public campaign, coordinated with the wider arts sector, targeting both UK and EU policymakers”. (It is true that there are more articles on the campaigns page of the union’s website on the lack of spots for buskers in Birmingham than there are about Brexit.)

But internal disputes needn’t concern us if the government itself simply took up the cudgels on behalf of this vital sector. It should not be beyond the wit of the UK and EU to get a scheme in place for restoring work access for both British and European musicians. It would be a simple win for both sides. It would boost cultural engagement. It would be good economically. And it wouldn’t upset anybody. Even the shrillest Mail columnist, of whom Keir Starmer’s government remains too timid, would struggle to whip up fervour over Bulgarian harpists coming over here and entertaining us.

“We are determined to strengthen our soft power abroad, and in turn deliver a major boost to our economy, as we focus on our missions to create jobs and spread opportunity across the UK,” said Nandy when she launched her new body earlier this year. Here’s an idea, then: do something.