"FOR THE ARTS, BREXIT IS TURNING INTO AN EXPENSIVE AND BUREACRATIC NIGHTMARE"
“Outside the single market, we need visas and work permits which are expensive and a bureaucratic nightmare. And in terms of moving goods into and out of the EU, like music equipment, carnets are extremely expensive because we’ve left the customs union. None of this was on the ballot paper in 2016.
“This is going to seep in more and more to people’s consciousness. The government didn’t get a mandate to leave the customs union. The young will overturn this because it’s in their interest to do so. They want a market of 400 million people, not a few million on an island.”
Jess Murphy, actor and musician, said:
“The government is able to hide behind the fact that none of us are working at the moment, they say the door is open. But it is already happening: people are putting out job requests and they’re saying you have to have an EU passport. So what the government has done is disadvantaged UK citizens across Europe.
A UK passport allows you to work just in the UK. We have been disadvantaged – I don’t just mean musicians and the creative industry. I mean all of us, we are all disadvantaged.”
Jonathan Holloway, renowned theatre director and writer, said:
“As a festival director, the impact of Brexit is utterly disastrous. It’s immeasurable. The impact is on thousands and thousands of careers, and millions of lives. It’s an unbelievably demoralising time for people who work in creative industries.
I don’t think we have any idea of the impact of Brexit on the arts, because it’s been masked by the pandemic. People haven’t tried putting on a festival, nobody’s tried because we’ve not been able to. I don’t think we have any idea yet the impact it’s going to have on arts and creativity.”