Musicians from across the UK, including Bob Geldof, Nick Mason and Brian Eno have written an open letter to the British PM Theresa May claiming that Brexit will result in the UK turning into a “self-built cultural jail”. The full letter is below.
The open letter is a stark signal of the dangers of Brexit to the country’s music industry. The UK is expected to leave the European Union on March 29th, 2019. According to Louder magazine, prog rock legends King Crimson reported that next year’s 50th-anniversary tour won’t comprise of European dates owing to “technicalities and bureaucracy of arranging visas” for the band and crew.
As well as Geldof, Mason and Eno, Roger Taylor, Johnny Marr, Sting, Jarvis Cocker and Damon Albarn have all added their names to the letter requesting a rethink before the UK becomes a “self-built cultural jail.”
The letter makes the claim that Britain is “about to make a very serious mistake” and that touring, sales, copyright legislation and the collection of royalties will be seriouslt compromised unless there’s a serious rethink.
The letter reads,
Imagine Britain without its music. If it’s hard for us, then it’s impossible for the rest of the world. In this one area, if nowhere else, Britain does still rule the waves. The airwaves. The cyberwaves. The soundwaves. It is of us. It is our culture.
We dominate the market and our bands, singers, musicians, writers, producers and engineers work all over Europe and the world. In turn, Europe and the world come to us. Why? Because we are brilliant at it.
No one quite knows why this should be but everyone understands it to be so. The sound and the words seem universal. It reaches out, all inclusive, and embraces anyone and everyone. And that truly is what Britain IS! That is proper Global Britain.
Let’s rock Europe and let’s save our music, our musicians, our music jobs and our songs. Let’s save our voice.
But Brexit threatens, as it does so much else, this vast voice. This huge global cultural influencer. We are about to make a very serious mistake regarding our giant industry and the vast pool of yet undiscovered genius that lives on this little island.
Why are we closing down these possibilities for ourselves and for those as yet unknown to us? Brexit will impact every aspect of the music industry. From touring, sales, copyright legislation, to royalty collation. Indeed it already has.
As a result of the referendum vote, the fall in the pound has meant hugely increased equipment costs, studio hire, and touring costs all now materially higher than before – and not forgetting that squeezed household incomes means less money to go to clubs and buy tracks, t-shirts, gigs and generate the vast income necessary to keep the up and comers on the road and musically viable.
A massive 60% of all royalty revenue paid to the UK comes from within the EU. And at home, ANY increase in import duty will mean that ANYTHING that comes to us from outside will cost significantly more. We have decided to put ourselves inside a self-built cultural jail!
The very opposite of wall-destroying, prejudice-denying, ideas-generating that is the very essence of contemporary music. And yet it is the much-mocked freedom of movement that so effortlessly allows our troubadours, our cultural warriors, to wander Europe and speak of us to a world that cannot get enough of [them], and which generates countless billions for our threatened institutions.
This is all a serious madness. We must take back our future.We must reform and restructure the EU. When Europe is in a mess, the Brits get stuck in. They don’t withdraw, they double down. They get in close and messy.
Make Europe the continent that we and the people of Europe want. Not the one dreamt up in another time by the ideologues, or by the undemocratic fiat of mediocre politicians or the dull exhortations of a pallid bureaucracy. A new one. A different one. An exciting one. A rock’n’roll one.
Let’s rock Europe and let’s save our music, our musicians, our music jobs and our songs. Let’s save our voice.
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