![]() True colours? Waving the union jack in front of skinheads at Madness’s Madstock festival in north London in 1992. In 1986, Morrissey gave an interview to Melody Maker in which he claimed that a “black pop conspiracy” was keeping his band down, describing reggae as “the most racist music in the entire world” and declaring that he “detests … black modern music”. Yet other aspects of his character were on display even in his heyday. But it was the singer’s compassion that shone through – his songs were about loneliness, outsiderdom and empathy with the weak, excluded and the downtrodden. The Smiths played at the Greater London Council’s Jobs for a Change festival in 1984 and appeared on the socialist Red Wedge tour in 1986. So just how did we get here? Morrissey’s politics certainly seemed leftwing in the 1980s – he was anti-Thatcher (Margaret on the Guillotine), anti-monarchy (The Queen Is Dead) with an uncompromising attitude towards animal rights (Meat Is Murder). But now he’s betraying those fans, betraying his legacy and empowering the very people Smiths fans were brought into being to oppose. I think Johnny was a constraint on him … back then he had to fit into the idea of the Smiths. “They were the greatest band of my generation, with the greatest guitar player and the greatest lyricist. “It stinks,” says Billy Bragg, who worked with, and loved, the Smiths during the 80s. ‘He’s betraying fans and empowering the very people Smiths fans were brought into being to oppose’ … Billy Bragg. A record store in Cardiff decided not to stock the album, with its owner saying sales of his music had nosedived because “customers are saying they can no longer buy into his increasingly divisive politics, not even for ‘old times’ sake’”.įor those of us whose difficult teenage years were only made tolerable by the Smiths, who considered him a friend as he evoked our inner turmoil through Walkman headphones (“Last night I felt / real arms around me / No hope, no harm, / just another false alarm”) it’s hard not to feel cheated by his behaviour. A guest vocalist on the record, Broken Social Scene’s Ariel Engle, told the Guardian she felt like she’d “been had” by the singer. Posters for his new album, California Son, have been taken down by the train network Merseyrail. Afterwards, they feel embarrassed or disliked.” In today’s culture wars, Morrissey has clearly chosen his side – and there have been consequences. Of Anthony Rapp, who accused Kevin Spacey of making sexual advances towards him when Rapp was 14 years old, he said: “One wonders if the boy did not know what would happen … When you are in somebody’s bedroom, you have to be aware of where that can lead.” Of the many female accusers of Harvey Weinstein, he said: “They play along. Last year, his thoughts on #MeToo were no less inflammatory. ![]() And he has explicitly promoted For Britain on his Morrissey Central website: “There is only one British political party that can safeguard our security.” The party’s leader, Anne Marie Waters, posted a video online thanking Morrissey for his support. He has described the media’s treatment of the racist Tommy Robinson as “shocking”. He has claimed Sadiq Khan, London’s first Muslim mayor, “cannot talk properly”, and declared “Even Tesco wouldn’t employ Diane Abbott,” – the Cambridge-educated shadow home secretary and Britain’s most prominent black MP. Yet in the last year there has been little doubt about his views. For those of us whose difficult teenage years were only made tolerable by the Smiths, it's hard not to feel cheated But was it surprising? Ever since the early 90s, he has flirted with the far right and fascist imagery – wrapping himself up in the union jack, writing a song called The National Front Disco, making inflammatory comments about immigration. To see Morrissey embrace the far right so openly was shocking. ![]()
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