Former Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon has said that immigration has created “division and animosity” in the UK.
The London-born singer, whose parents were immigrants from Ireland, discussed the apparent effects of immigration and doubled down on his support for Brexit during an interview on LBC last night (March 7).
“Britain today is so, so catastrophically disappointing,” said Lydon, who now lives in Los Angeles, California.
He went on to talk about how some of the shows on his forthcoming spoken word tour – dubbed ‘I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right’ – would be taking place “in seaside towns” such as Brighton, Folkestone and Blackpool.
“I mean, they really indicate how rundown Britain has become,” Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, continued. “Those used to be fantastic places when I was a kid. Mum and dad would drag us off there for what felt like hours in a traffic jam, but it was absolutely great.
“It was working-class people throwing sand at each other […] and the environment was economically thriving, I suppose, in the seaside towns […] It was vibrant.”
Lydon went on to claim that such towns were now “full” of “prospective immigrants, which are really like illegals [who are] not being cared for properly, but they shouldn’t have been accepted in such vast numbers”.
He said: “It’s created a real, real animosity in communities. The division… when you import so many people with a completely different point of view, they’re not going to adapt to yours. They’re going to stay and bring the problems they’re allegedly escaping from with them.”
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Host Andrew Marr then pushed back on the remarks, asking the singer what the difference was between Britain “importing the Lydons” from Ireland and the current situation in the United Kingdom.
“The first thing my mum and dad ever would tell me when I was very young was, ‘You’re British now! Be British, and be proud of it!’” Lydon responded. “Most excellent advice, and I’ve followed through.”
Later, the artist reaffirmed his support for Brexit. “When you go to towns like Middlesborough and Sunderland, and you see what the EU has done to them… it’s quite awful,” he said. “They’ve turned them into Ikea shopping centers where the local communities have been completely dissipated.”
Continue here: NME
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