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Heavy metal Brexit news: Dickinson out, Osbourne confused

By | Published on Tuesday 27 November 2018

Ozzy Osbourne

And now, aging heavy metal frontman political awareness news. Ozzy Osbourne still isn’t sure what Brexit is, while Bruce Dickinson does know but still wants out of the EU.

In a welcome change from most ex-pat celebs who have little-to-know direct contact with the UK anymore, and are wealthy enough that nothing really matters to them anyway, but who still want to air an opinion, Osbourne says he has no view on Brexit and has never bothered finding out what it is.

Speaking to The Big Issue, he says: “I don’t read the newspapers and I don’t really talk politics because I don’t really know. I don’t really understand Brexit”.

It’s clearly not something that gets discussed at the dinner table in the Osbourne household either, because his wife Sharon definitely does have opinions. Back in 2016, shortly after the referendum, she welcomed Britain’s stupid decision to leave the EU, because, she reckons, the country has become too much like Hong Kong.

Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson, meanwhile, has just given an interview to French magazine L’Obs, in which he says he’s “quite relaxed” about Brexit.

“The interesting thing about Brexit is that I’m one of the people who voted for it”, he says, misjudging what most people would deem to be ‘the interesting thing’ about it. “I’m actually quite relaxed about it. There’s a lot of nonsense and scare stories being made up by both sides actually, which I think is pretty immature. Brexit will allow us to be more flexible, and I think that people in Europe will get an advantage from that”.

Asked about potential touring issues for the band, or any other artists, post-Brexit he says: “Iron Maiden music is global music, we have fans everywhere. I don’t see any problem. I don’t see any problem with touring Australia – that’s not part of the EU. There’s no problem with touring in Japan – that’s not part of the EU. I don’t see any problem with touring America. Oh, let me see – that’s not part of the EU. Do those musicians have problems coming to Europe? No”.

That flies in the face of what UK Music is saying. The music industry trade body has just issued its latest warning to Theresa May that the current course of Brexit threatens UK acts’ ability to tour in the EU. Mainly because most artists – unlike Iron Maiden – can’t afford any extra costs associated with new visa requirements.

“The ending of free movement with no waiver for musicians will put our fast-growing live music sector, that generates around £1 billion a year for the UK economy, at serious risk”, says UK Music boss Michael Dugher. “The costly bureaucracy will make touring simply unviable for very many artists who need to earn a living and it delivers a hammer blow to development of future, world-leading British talent”.

It’s almost as if, by being part of a massively lucrative touring machine and being able to fly his own jumbo jet around the world, Dickinson isn’t quite up to speed with the life of the average musician.

Nonetheless, he reckons that everything would run much better if the politicians were all sacked and those musicians (average or otherwise) were put in charge instead.

“If musicians were running Britain it would run a lot better, because we’d all get along with each other and say, ‘yep'”, he explains. And I can’t see any holes in that argument at all.



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