Morrissey’s Brexit love affair makes him the last true rock’n’roll rebel

Morrissey, Smiths frontman turned solo crooner turned novelist, has long taken pleasure in rattling the establishment. From mocking the monarchy on the 1986 Smiths album The Queen is Dead, to his lovely ballad about how much he wanted Margaret Thatcher to die, to his frequent foot-stomping over the meat industry, the music industry and industry in general, this Mancunian contrarian, this gobby quiff-sporter, has never been shy about shooting off his mouth at powerful people who irritate him. Now he’s at it again. Only this time he’s saved his ire for the new establishment: the PC, sex-panicking, Brexitphobic bores who make up the 21st-century chattering class.

Risking his national-treasure status — which, let’s face it, was rusty — Moz’s every utterance now seems designed to make this new elite barf into its muesli. Where they weep over Brexit, and the thick throng that voted for it, Moz says Brexit was a ‘victory for democracy’.