The greatest obstacle to a Smiths reunion has long appeared to be the unrepentant twattishness of the band’s lead singer, one Steven Patrick Morrissey. Nevertheless, there’s been optimism in the air over the last month or so that the band might yet get back together. However, if you’ve been setting aside cash for tickets, you can probably stop saving, because Johnny Marr has poured cold water over the idea of any sort of reunion — and the reason, yet again, is Morrissey being a dick.
Specifically, as Marr told Sky News yesterday, it’s Morrissey’s politics that are proving a stumbling block. The singer recently spoke to FasterLouder in strikingly favorable terms about the result of the Brexit referendum, throwing in some “omg the MSM sux so much!!!” commentary for good measure: “As for Brexit, the result was magnificent, but it is not accepted by the BBC or Sky News because they object to a public that cannot be hypnotised by BBC or Sky nonsense. These news teams are exactly the same as Fox and CNN in that they all depend on public stupidity in order to create their own myth of reality. Watch them at your peril!”
Marr, it’s fair to say, was less than enchanted by Morrissey’s views on Brexit, although he spoke about them in a pleasantly understated and very British manner: “[This is] stuff I hear second hand and I don’t believe everything I read but if that is the case that he’s pro-[UKIP grandee Nigel] Farage, there would be a slight drawback in that, as anyone would imagine.” Marr himself was and is proudly anti-Brexit: “As far as Brexit goes, I’m proud again to be in the minority. No-one ever says the majority is right, I’ve been in the minority a lot — when I was younger and now… My personal politics were that I thought decency and society should look after people who need a helping hand and I still think that and I think the Conservative government stood for the opposite of that and I still do.”