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Thanks to @dancairns123 for this succinct & supportive piece (£) in which I am briefly quoted. It concludes with a short quote which I feel I should expand upon, below in a thread.../1 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/brexit-deal-has-left-musicians-off-stage-and-out-in-the-cold-6b3hskgdv
"the stable door has been bolted" - our sector's been warning for 5 years now of the negative impact of the end of EU Freedom of Movement, persistently, with evidence/data/expertise, yet brexit ministers have been unwilling or unable to make our case at the negotiating table /2
It's exasperating, sure, but most of all it is disastrous for the livelihoods of 1000s of musicians and other skilled professionals affected. That a government could operate with such callous disregard for the real-life consequences of their citizens is beyond comprehension. /3
The May and Johnson governments have served the creative industries disastrously with respect to the Brexit negotiations, for all their trumpeting in public of the sector's enormous recent successes & its potential for UK re-growth after covid /4
The time to negotiate something like an EU-wide Creative passport was when we had leverage DURING the main deal. Now the dynamic is different. Why should the EU offer such a thing now, and who will make the case since they have not done so already: Dowden? Johnson? Seriously? /5
Johnson's brexiters & their press allies portrayed the deal as the UK 'winning' as if it was a war, with the EU. Which EU leader in their right mind would want to do a goodwill gesture for these tribal, dishonest, triumphalist leftovers from the mindset of the 40s? /6
And given the damage being wreaked across multiple industries, in fact across most export sectors, right now, by the great brexit swindle, with red tape paralysis & job losses coming thick & fast, why would Johnson prioritise eg musicians in begging the EU for help, post-deal? /7
Don't get we wrong. I think easing visa requirements for working musicians, even if the whole Carnet/Haulage nightmare can't be reversed, would be great. But we're asking a favour that we don't as a 'hostile environment' country offer musicians from, say Brazil or Nigeria /8
As EU members we didn't campaign for a continent-wide visa exemption for artists & their technical crews when we were In The Room Where It Happens, but now we want it for ourselves? isn't this a bit, you know, hypocritical? /9
Outside the EU, our influence over their deliberations on any subject, let alone creative passporting, is going to be marginal, bordering on invisible, and yet most of our export industries will be deeply affected by their decisions & laws. 'Taking back control' was a lie /10
Remember, skilled artists, like skilled technicians, engineers, scientists or medical researchers will be drawn to countries where they are valued, where govts support them. Is the UK Govt going to let a post-Brexit talent drain turn into a flood, from their inertia? /11
UK plc needs the overseas exporting power of the creative sector if it is to survive. Johnson has congratulated himself on a trade deal with the EU that has nothing in it for by far the UK's two biggest export industries, financial and creative: that's a HUGE to-do list /12
Never mind they haven't yet sorted out data equivalence. These are gigantic areas to plough through, as is the mountain of new red tape at every border, and the consequences of erecting a border between NI & the rest of the UK. /13
So I'm very worried that the bandwidth for getting a 'creative passport' or 90-day working visa exemption is going to be difficult to achieve mid-pandemic, with so much on the EU's plate. Meanwhile the UK govt fights the highest covid infection rate per capita in the world /14
We have been warning of these explicit sector problems FOR YEARS. I am exhausted by the feeble reassurances of brexiters/Tory MPs that 'all will be fine'. No it isn't. You have done sweet FA in all that time. Fellow creatives, this is going to be a long haul. Sorry. /15 end
