Prophecies of doom should be taken with a pinch of salt
It’s time for the arts world to come to terms with Brexit, says Ivan Hewett
The picture on the cover of “The Arts after Brexit”, a new report from the University of Manchester, says it all. It shows Lady Europa in a voluminous blue gown extending her kindly protection to a group of EU children, while a British boy in his Union flag T-shirt stands disconsolately to one side, resisting the friendly overtures of a little girl wearing the French tricolore.
Poor, surly, self-punishing Britain. If only she had seen sense at the time of the Brexit referendum, she could have stayed within the happy European comity of nations.
That’s the message of the report – but just how important is the support of the EU to the arts in the UK?
Well, in cash terms, it’s not overwhelming in terms of a percentage of the whole, but still pretty substantial. Arts projects in England received on average around £40 million per year in EU funding, and the UK’S other nations received similar amounts in proportion.
To put this in perspective, Arts Council England’s spending on the arts in 2018-19 was just over £600 million.
But the beneficial effects of EU membership went far beyond cash. There was the freedom for musicians and actors and artists to work anywhere within the EU; tariff-free travel for theatre companies, orchestras and bands touring with truckloads of gear.
All these one might have guessed, but the report mentions other potential losses in the fields of copyright and intellectual property, and membership of useful umbrella organisations such as Creative Europa.
The author, Charlotte Faucher paints a gloom-laded picture. She ends by recommending some urgent policy initiatives to mitigate the effects of losing these various benefits, and they are certainly useful.
But the report’s plausibility is dented by its attachment to the EU and its works, which are simply accepted as a self-evident good. In that respect, Faucher is echoing the mindset of the world she’s investigating, which is well-nigh monolithic.
Many of the arts practitioners and bureaucrats she interviews are clearly in mourning for the EU, and we even read that, “For staff working directly with EU institutions, there was also a feeling that they represented a country that they did not feel aligned with.”
What they felt “aligned” with was, of course, the EU. Which is worrying because they were not employed by the EU; they were employed to serve the needs of British citizens, and they were supported, for the most part, by British taxpayers.
This shows the danger that lurks when a supranational body like the EU channels funds to member states, however benign the intention seems to be. It weakens the sense of national identity and loyalty. I know of a British performer who admits that most of her funding comes from Brussels; it’s not hard to guess where her loyalties rest.
All this gives the lie to the mantra repeated by arts practitioners: that they are all driven by a burning desire to “serve their community”.
This peculiar doublethink leads to examples of clear conflicts of interest which might bother the reader of this report, even though the author appears unconcerned.
One example concerns the Manchester-based theatre company
HOME. Like so many arts companies, this is a registered charity, and so in effect is supported by the taxpayer.
Despite this, the company felt no qualms about putting on an anti-brexit play called Out of Order, which featured six clowns wordlessly discussing Brexit. Why? Because this is a time when ‘‘words are no longer a useful ally to express how we feel about the current impasse. Or maybe, just maybe, the rest of the world thinks we’re a bunch of clowns.”
HOME thought this was fine, Faucher explains, because the city of Manchester voted to remain in the European Union; but a majority of districts in Greater Manchester did not, and the company clearly weren’t bothered if some of the audience members felt themselves included among the clowns.
Here and there one finds a hint that not everyone in the arts is so negative (the Danish-uk Association thinks Brexit will just be “a bump in the road”). But the overall message the report wants to drive home is: disaster is coming, and the Government must act now to mitigate it.
The message many of us might actually take away is that, given the unflattering picture the report gives of the institutional mindset governing Britain’s arts, prophecies of doom should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Many of those interviewed are clearly still in mourning for the EU