Andy Burnham slams “ridiculous” Brexit rules and demands “free exchange” of artists through Europe

Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has slammed the “ridiculous” post-Brexit rules around artists touring Europe – calling for the “free exchange” of musicians throughout Europe.

• READ MORE: Brexit: UK government warned musicians and crew “could find themselves unemployed en masse”

Speaking on a panel about how leaders can come together to change visa issues for touring musicians at Manchester’s inaugural ‘Beyond The Music‘ conference on Friday (October 13), Burnham said there needs to be a campaign to show how “critical” the situation has become for artists and venues alike.

Back in 2021, the UK music industry spoke out on how they had essentially been handed a “No Deal Brexit” when the government failed to negotiate visa-free travel and Europe-wide work permits for musicians and crew.

As a result, artists attempting to hit the road again after COVID found themselves on the predicted “rocky road” for the first summer of European touring after Britain left the EU – finding that the complications of Brexit were “strangling the next generation of UK talent in the cradle”.

The government were then warned that musicians and crew “could find themselves unemployed en masse”, after a hearing at the House Of The Lords revealed the damage already being caused by Brexit on those wishing to tour Europe.

Speaking alongside fellow northern mayors, Tracy Brabin of West Yorkshire and Steve Rotherham of the Liverpool City Region, Burnham said they all now need to work together to create a system that allows for musicians to travel freely throughout Europe.

“I think as mayors we need to build this campaign really strongly from the bottom up to say this industry is critical to us, not marginal, critical, and we need an arrangement that allows for [the] free exchange of musicians touring here from Europe and for British musicians going [into Europe],” said Burnham.

“For us, it’s absolutely critical to our visitor economy, but also just to the way our city regions are seen and known around Europe. It’s just a nonsense, isn’t it? You’re having to learn about ETIAS [visas to work in Europe] and all of this. It’s going to damage us far more than we probably know as a country if we allow this stuff to stay in place.”

Liverpool Mayor Rotherham said that the city’s hosting of Eurovision in the summer was affected by Brexit rules and led to “lots and lots of issues around the whole thing”, including some artists being denied entry.

However, he went on to claim that “blind eyes were turned” because “the eyes of the world were on us” and said there were “ways found around some of the nonsense” saying it proved these issues could be overcome with more joined-up-thinking.

“It all just needs clarification, doesn’t it? We need to really pick out the issues and then get somebody one by one to say, ‘okay, that’s how you fix that. That’s how you sort that one off.'”

He went on to ask: “I think I’m right in saying that [Boris] Johnson was offered a solution to this and it was thrown back?” to which Burnham replied: “Yes, it was thrown back at Europe,” in response to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s rejection of a visa-free touring plan for musicians.

Andy Corrigan, from Visa La Visa, an organisation that helps musicians with the complex process of obtaining visas to work in Europe, told the panel that musicians at the start of their career “are being put off touring by the actual costs of obtaining visas and permits.”

He continued: “A lot of people are afraid of going over their allocation of days and they’re worried that at some point they’ll get caught. And there have been occasions where people have been caught – there was an occasion in Denmark a few months ago where some technicians in audio visual were detained and deported from Denmark.

“There were stories last year about bands being turned away because they [got] the [visa process] wrong. It’s putting musicians off travelling.”

In an op-ed message penned for NME last summer, Wolf Alice guitarist Joff Oddie wrote of his fears that changes brought about by Brexit were “going to seriously damage the prospects of so many new acts, who have already been held back by two years of not being able to tour due to the pandemic”.

“We cannot expect to retain our rich musical culture and heritage if we fail to support both upcoming and established artists,” wrote Oddie. “We need a new deal for touring from the Government now. It is time to tear down the barriers artists are facing touring the EU. It is time to let the music move!”

• READ MORE: Brexit is “strangling the next generation of UK talent in the cradle” in return to touring

At the conference, Brabin also brought up the difficulty that some musicians in her region had experienced trying to sell merchandise in Europe because of issues with complex VAT rules since Brexit, including charges for taking merchandise into and out of different countries.

“A lot of young people are telling me part of the problem is merchandise and they can’t take their t-shirts and all their stuff [to sell] in because it costs too much money – but that’s the only way they’re making money in the first place.”

Corrigan went on to say the current rules “don’t work” and need simplifying to help bands earn money in Europe once again.

A new report recently showed that almost 50 per cent of UK musicians are working less in Europe since Brexit. The new Paying The Price report from the Independent Society of Musicians, surveyed over 400 musicians and found that 47.4 per cent of those surveyed said they had worked less in the EU after Brexit went through, with 27.8 per cent having no work on the continent at all.

40 per cent had work cancelled since January 1 2021, with almost as many (39 per cent) having to turn down planned work.

Independent Society of Musicians boss Deborah Annetts said of the findings: “The government has been asleep on the job. It could have tackled many of the issues facing the music sector by itself and made Brexit work. It chose not to. This report provides a pathway to make Brexit work for music, and most of the recommendations would not require renegotiating the TCA.”

She added: “Brexit should never have meant that musicians cannot share their talent freely with our closest neighbours. This damages our country, our soft power and our precious creative talent pipeline. Music is worth £5.8billion to the UK economy and the wider creative industries are worth £116billion. We call on the government to take action and make Brexit work for the wellbeing of musicians and our economy.”

Rotherham said in terms of negotiating with the treasury, only by telling the government how much the UK economy is losing in real terms through the rules will it make any difference.

“A great thing about UK Music is that they did a report which showed how much UK Plc benefits from music. With [the] treasury, it’s no good arguing the moral or ethical dimension of this. It’s always about pound notes and that’s what we need to do now. The country is actually losing out because of some of these restrictions.”

Burnham also added that it was time for ministers to stop evading questions around Brexit.

“We’ve got to stop this idea that you can’t raise things with ministers. It’s just absolutely ridiculous,” he said in response to the government being reluctant to discussing to negotiate or discuss the issues many face post-Brexit.

“I think that the thing that really comes over to me is in this post-Brexit period when we should be trying to sort of promote positive images of Britain abroad, music’s our best way of doing it…it shows Britain in a good way that people relate to. [But] it is…being denied to us because of these ridiculous rules around British musicians traveling into Europe.”

Burnham added: “I think the mayors can really be a voice for the industry…let’s really move beyond this sort of period that we’ve been in, this political sort of dead zone post-Brexit. Let’s start calling out clearly what really is not working here in the interest of the country and start reaching out to [our] colleagues in Europe to get it fixed.”

The Beyond The Music conference also saw a panel hear how grassroots venues need “action not kind words” as they had for “disaster” without investment from larger arenas and government attention.

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