DESPITE all the horror in the world, it’s a beautiful day, and I’m sitting here planning my first tour of mainland Europe for three years which kicks off in June. It’s my 40th anniversary celebration, delayed by two years because of Covid (entirely outside our control) and completely changed because of Brexit (entirely within our control, now, apparently, because we’ve taken it back.)

Tell that to my band, with whom I’ve played for 27 years. They can’t perform with me any more, because the formerly simple, easy act of transporting a load of people, musical equipment and merch across the Channel has turned into a ridiculous, complicated, costly, bureaucratic nightmare. Easily dealt with by the likes of Roger Daltrey, with his army of accountants and fleet of trucks, but insurmountable for a band travelling in a transit van playing small gigs, as we have done happily since 1994. 

I’m very fortunate, since I have the option of performing solo. As a poet and songwriter I can get myself a (senior) rail pass, take my mandola and suitcase, head off — without merch — and do my gigs, which is what I’m doing. 

But most musicians need to perform together, and for anyone without a substantial following European tours are now completely unsustainable. And that goes not just for rock music but classical, jazz, you name it. Bad enough for old hands like myself — but ripping away an entire continent of opportunity for the young and up and coming. A disgraceful and pointless act of self-inflicted cultural vandalism.

I am fully aware of the stance of this newspaper and many of its readers, and am proud of the Morning Star for being the only national paper I have written for (there have been many) which has permitted me to write freely and without censure. One in the eye for all those right wingers who heap abuse on us as “undemocratic”! 

Here’s a poem. Keep safe, whatever you think of this week’s column.

ROCK ‘N’ ROLL BREXIT
(Written on the ferry home, Oct 10 2016)

I’ve just toured with my band Barnstormer
from Dunkirk to Lucerne and back
through France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland
without showing a passport once.
Yes, non-EU Switzerland too —
A little bridge, an empty hut.
In my punk rock youth
I remember 
how musicians had to carry carnets 
for our instruments 
when we crossed the Channel —
everything down to the last spare string 
painstakingly listed on a pointless green form
checked and stamped at every border
after standing with the truckers in endless queues.
I remember the invasive French customs 
whose cretinously predictable searches
for non-existent drugs
took the edge off many an otherwise enjoyable tour.
Search the big posh cars
driven by the suits,
I’d always say
after these unimaginative custodians 
had finished their fruitless checks:
no-one imports half a ton of heroin 
dressed like we are
driving a scruffy transit van
with ‘CLEAN ME’ 
written in the dirt on one side 
‘WE HATE CRYSTAL PALACE’
on the other
a large knob and testicles
adorning the back
and empty beer bottles
rolling around on the floor.
Are we going to have to go through all this again?
Just because Rupert Murdoch 
was pissed off by the fact
that no-one in Brussels
took a blind bit of notice of him?
Lord give me strength!

Only joking, of course.
Brexit was an informed decision 
taken by the British people 
after serious consideration
of the established facts
presented intelligently
and objectively 
by the rigorous guardians 
of the Fourth Estate.
And anyone who suggests anything else
is patronising and supercilious.
So if in a few years’ time
a British number plate for a band touring Europe
becomes the equivalent of a plague signal on a door 
in medieval times
and I am once again obliged to fill in ridiculous forms
and perhaps even at my advanced age
stand naked in a room 
with a gloved finger up my arse
and my foreskin peeled back
as I once did in Calais in the Eighties
I shall hold myself proudly to attention
and celebrate the fact 
that I am British
and we have 
Taken 
Back 
Control.

Restoration Tragedy, my new album with my band Barnstormer 1649, is out now, mixing early music and punk in 58 minutes of songs and instrumentals set around the time of the English Revolution of 1649. Crumhorn, cornamuse, bombarde, shawm, rauschpfeife, five different recorders, violin, viola, mandola, mandocello, guitar, bass, drums, voices and words.  Music for Levellers, Diggers and Ranters! 

For this, and details of my autobiography Arguments Yard, Undaunted my most recent poetry book, and others, and other CDs, T-shirts etc please visit http://www.attilathestockbroker.com/merch.php

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Twitter: @atilatstokbroka