Facing his new musical in London's West End, starring Sheridan Smithwhich closed two months early after receiving a series of terrible reviews, Rufus Wainwright had no doubts about the perpetrator.
Never mind that, as The Mail on Sunday reported, some spectators walked out during the break Brexit weed did it.
“I feel that since Brexit, England has entered a darker corridor where it is slightly narrower in its prospects,” Wainwright lamented earlier this month. 'There is a lack of imagination and curiosity for change.'
It was so outrageous to blame the failure of a musical on Brexit that even the anti-Brexit Observer newspaper felt the need to suggest there might have been other factors.
The writer David Benedict, also a columnist at The Stage, reminded Wainwright that critics have been blabbing about the conservative tastes of West End theatergoers since the 1950s.
When it was announced that the musical Opening Night starring Sheridan Smith at the center would close early, some audience members blamed Brexit
Even the anti-Brexit New York Times thought Wainwright's play was a turkey, while the critic called the show a “sludgy travesty.”
With many Remoaners still unable to accept that Britain voted to leave the EU, almost eight years after the referendum, you can't expect too much in the way of objectivity. Brexit has become the standard, tired excuse for when something goes wrong in Britain. It's high's fault inflation (by former bank of England including Governor Mark Carney) – yet prices have soared in every developed country due to Covid and Russia invasion of Ukraine.
The country has been blamed for low growth – despite the fact that the UK economy has grown at a similar pace to France since the pandemic, and at a slightly higher pace than Germany's.
Brexit was also slammed by health think tank Nuffield Trust last month over a shortage of NHS medicines – while the entire global supply chain has been under pressure since Covid. Severe lockdowns in China disrupted supplies, and Western pharmaceutical giants scrambled to make vaccines. The end of lockdowns also saw a surge in demand for treatment for conditions that people had been delaying seeing their doctors for.
In March, a newspaper reported that a Scandinavian food importer whose customers include Ikea and Ocado was struggling to supply customers' “favourite red sausages” because suppliers were “deterred by the new red tape”.
But the sheer audacity of the suggestion that Brexit would lead to an increase in tailgating must be criticized. Yes, at the 2019 Conservative Party conference an unnamed minister, with an appetite for Rufus Wainwright-level nonsense, said he feared the queues of lorries waiting to get through Dover would lead to their drivers would look for sex in parking lots. Unfortunately, Kent Police were unable to provide me with any statistics to confirm this.
We all know Britain has an obesity problem, but one caused or exacerbated by Brexit? That was the extraordinary claim in a 2018 paper by researchers at the Oxford Martin School, which stated that “any increase in trade costs is likely to have a negative impact on the availability and consumption of foods that are crucial components of healthy diets and the prevention of chronic diseases. '.
There are two main things wrong with the theory that Brexit has made obesity worse in Britain. Firstly, Britain's adult population has grown enormously during our membership of the EU. In 1975, ten percent of the population was obese, but by 2016 it was thirty percent – perhaps helped by a few croissants.
In February 2023, a tomato and salad shortage forced some stores to ration supplies. It was felt across Europe as high fuel costs forced growers in northern Europe to turn off their heated greenhouses, while bad weather devastated Spain's lettuce-growing region.
Secondly, Brexit has done nothing to make healthy food unaffordable: on the contrary, it remains cheaper to buy fresh fruit and vegetables in Britain than in most other places in Europe. According to the World Bank, in 2021 (five years after the Brexit vote) it cost the equivalent of $1.95 per person per day to afford a 'well-balanced diet' in Britain, compared to $3.08 in Germany and $3.25 in France.
Not that this has stopped Remainers who shout 'Brexit' when they see an empty shelf in a supermarket. They did so in February 2023, when a tomato and salad shortage prompted some stores to ration supplies. Still, the shortage was felt across Europe as high fuel costs forced growers in Northern Europe to turn off their heated greenhouses, while bad weather devastated Spain's lettuce-growing region.
In March, a newspaper reported that an importer of Scandinavian food products, whose customers include Ikea and Ocado, was struggling to supply customers' “favourite red sausages” because suppliers were “deterred by the new red tape”.
Brexit has apparently ruined sport too. Last September, the race director of the Tour of Britain – our answer to the Tour de France – stated that the reason only 96 riders had registered was 'Brexit, pure and simple'. His reasoning was that teams were afraid their buses and trucks would be held up in Dover. Never mind that critics complained about a 'boring' course with flat stages around Altrincham – hardly the steep hairpins of Alpe d'Huez – or that the race had lost its main sponsor, investment company AJ Bell.
Oh, and Brexit is responsible for the sewage spills. That claim was made in 2021 by the European Movement UK when it was revealed that the Environment Agency had temporarily allowed water companies to discharge untreated sewage into rivers due to delays in the delivery of chemicals used to treat the mud.
Blaming Brexit ignored the fact that the country was in the middle of a pandemic and supply chains had been disrupted. And the problem of sewage disposal dates back to the fateful decision made in Victorian times to combine dirty sewers with storm drains, which meant dumping sewage into rivers when they overflowed.
Rising fares for budget airlines? They obviously have nothing to do with the debts built up as a result of the pandemic when flights were grounded or as airlines took advantage of the lack of competition as some rivals went to the wall. No, Brexit is to blame.
Then there was the 'wave' of hate crimes supposedly sparked by Brexit. Hours after the Leave vote, Remain campaigners highlighted how a window had been smashed at a Spanish restaurant in south London – until police blamed it on an attempted burglary.
Rising fares for budget airlines? They obviously have nothing to do with the debts built up as a result of the pandemic when flights were grounded or as airlines took advantage of the lack of competition as some rivals went to the wall. No, Brexit is to blame
It is claimed that the number of hate crimes has 'doubled' after Brexit – a claim based on one week's figures in 2016. Yet in the longer term it is impossible to predict a rise in hate crimes linked to the Brexit – the steady increase in reporting has been evident for fifteen years as police have encouraged people to come forward.
Brexit has caused real problems for some people. Importers and exporters have faced additional costs and delays. British holidaymakers have been hit with rules refusing entry to EU countries in cases where their passports were issued more than nine years and nine months ago.
But much of what is being blamed for Brexit is exaggeration and nonsense on the part of people looking for a ready-made distraction from their own failures.
Those who remain should welcome Brexit, because without Brexit they might have to take responsibility for the current state of Britain.