UK music industry faces ‘slow, steady decline’
because of Brexit barriers
British ministers urged to overcome ‘Brexit ideology’
and fix industry problems.
BY CRISTINA
GALLARDO
October 20,
2021 7:27 pm
LONDON —
British ministers must overcome their “Brexit ideology” in order to tackle new
barriers that might lead to a “slow, steady decline” of the U.K. music
industry, artists have warned.
Ten months
after Brexit, British touring artists and performers are growing impatient at
the lack of solutions to issues such as the lack of an EU-wide visa waiver
allowing them to tour the bloc easily and for free; new so-called cabotage
rules banning U.K. tour vehicles of more than 3.5 tonnes from making more than
two stops before returning to Britain; and fresh paperwork needed to take
certain musical instruments into the EU.
In a letter
to the U.K.’s Brexit Minister David Frost, the House of Lords European affairs
committee accused the government of “failing to engage with the industry in a
constructive way, continuing to pursue headlines” rather than dealing with the
“very serious issues” faced by U.K. touring artists.
According
to the committee’s chair Charles Hay, “there is an appearance of a lack of
coordination across the multiple departments and agencies” involved in
supporting and regulating the creative industries, and “a reluctance to engage”
with the industry or the EU to find solutions.
“It is
clear that the impact of the lack of provisions in the [Brexit Trade and
Cooperation Agreement] TCA on creative professionals is so severe as to force
many performers out of the sector and to pose a serious threat to sections of
the industry,” Hay wrote. “We fear that this not only risks substantial damage
to an important sector of the UK economy, but may also undermine the
government’s vision of a global Britain using its soft power to advance its
interests internationally in the post-Brexit era.”
Mark
Pemberton, director of the Association of British Orchestras, said the music
industry has very good engagement with U.K. officials, but when it comes to
ministers “there’s a glass ceiling of ideology we cannot break through.”
“Ministers
aren’t willing to listen to our concerns if what we want to change bumps up
against their ideology and their ideology is ‘the nation voted for Brexit, they
voted for us to take back control of our laws, our borders and our money,’” he
said.
The
clearest example of this was the government’s refusal to agree visa-free travel
for business purposes — including touring — in the Brexit trade negotiations,
out of fear this could undermine Boris Johnson’s pledge to control immigration,
Pemberton said.
Since
mobility is a competence of EU member states, the U.K. has tried to remove the
need for visas and work permits by negotiating with the 27 EU countries
individually.
So far, 20
of them have some sort of visa-waiver in place for British touring artists,
covering different lengths of time, from 7 to 90 days per year. However, it is
relatively easy for U.K. touring artists to stack up several visits to the EU
and reach the limit of 90 days within a 180-day period that someone from
outside the passport-free Schengen zone is able to spend in the bloc without a
visa, Pemberton said.
Out of the
seven countries without a visa-waiver, Spain remains the most bureaucratic and
expensive. Each musician might have to spend £180 on permits in order to
perform in the country, which adds up to a huge amount for an orchestra, he
added.
After
Brexit, musicians transporting instruments containing materials such as ivory,
Brazilian rosewood and abalone into the EU must secure a Conference on
International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES)
permit. But Pemberton said only last week U.K. officials agreed to look into
the lack of facilities for these checks on Eurostar trains, despite the
industry having raised this issue since the 2016 Brexit referendum.
The number
of EU students in British conservatoires is likely to fall by half, according
to preliminary data cited by Linda Merrick, principal at the Royal Northern
College of Music (RNCM). EU students used to make up to 25 percent of the total
music student population in the U.K. before Brexit.
Speaking at
an online event Wednesday, she blamed the increase in fees for EU students
after Brexit, and the end of free movement and of Britain’s participation in
the EU’s Erasmus+ mobility scheme. She warned some 30 partnerships between the
RNCM and institutions in EU countries, especially in Eastern Europe, will
become “quite dormant.”
Pemberton
warned all these barriers might “cut off” the U.K.’s industry from the EU music
scene. “What we are concerned about ... is the sort of slow, steady decline, as
promoters in Europe wake up to the fact that it’s all got more difficult and
more expensive,” he said.
A U.K.
government spokesperson said Britain had flagged the barriers to touring at the
first meeting of the EU-U.K. Partnership Council, which oversees the
implementation of the trade deal. They said the U.K. is still working with the
seven EU countries without visa or work-permit free routes for touring
professionals “to encourage them to match the U.K.’s generous arrangements” for
European touring artists.
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