Power, corruption, lies and Brexit

On occasion, after a long spell of thinking about Brexit and the state of British politics, I like to cheer myself up by thinking about Joy Division.

By now, the Joy Division story is as ubiquitous as those black-and-white t-shirts showing the pulsar wave pattern from the cover of their first album, Unknown Pleasures. They were bleak, mournful, icy, but also compelling, hypnotic, thrilling.

They released a handful of captivating singles and two magnificent albums between 1978 and May 1980, when the singer and lyricist Ian Curtis took his own life. And then almost immediately, the remaining members reconvened as New Order and made another handful of brilliant records, inventing British electronic dance music along the way.

Bernard Sumner, the guitarist who became the band’s singer and lyricist, could never take you to the places Curtis could, and New Order were better for that. Curtis was the tormented artist; Sumner the dreaming everyman. And when he said something that was simple and profound – “Every time I think of you, I feel shot right through with a bolt of blue”, for example – you had to listen.

So it was again this week when “A message from Bernard” appeared on New Order’s social media feeds. “I don’t normally post much and don’t normally post about stuff like this – but I do care about it,” it began, proceeding to skewer the government over its prospective raid on the Personal Independence Payments for people with mental health issues. They are a group Sumner has campaigned for in the past few years as he has come to terms with the weight of losing Curtis and others to suicide.

He then moved onto another topic – one he wrote powerfully about for the New European in November 2016 as we were all coming to terms with the ramifications of a referendum lost five months earlier.

Eight years on, Sumner wrote: “Last week the EU offered the UK a youth mobility scheme to allow people between the ages of 18 and 30 to study and live in the EU, effectively freedom of movement that of course the EU would expect to be reciprocated. However it’s been rejected by Rishi Sunak and, disappointingly, by Labour too. How can you do that to young people? They should enjoy the same freedom these politicians had when they were the same age.

“We are enduring yet more of the same old attitude when it’s been obvious for a long time now that Brexit is an abject failure. According to opinion polls the British people… categorically do not want Brexit any more, so why are they all pretending everything is OK as far as ‘the British people’ are concerned when, clearly, it isn’t? There are no benefits, only downsides that so far have cost the UK economy an estimated £140 billion and then there’s Rwanda. If Brexit hadn’t happened, Rwanda wouldn’t be happening.”

He ended with: “In my opinion, the Tories should vacate the premises and Labour should get its act together and show us they have the courage required to govern effectively.”

Like the Joy Division story, there’s not much that needs adding to that. Except to urge you to do three things: read Bernard’s article from 2016, share his hope for a speedy regime change and of course, listen to the records.

Power, Corruption & Lies seems like an apt choice. And these lyrics from 2005’s Waiting For The Siren’s Call seem apposite too:

“There she plies a lonely trade/Cutting through the breaking waves/Drifting slowly from her course/She is lost forever more.”