Arts in the UK post-Brexit

[Richard Barrett]

Can't this type of project be developed on a global basis so that Jamaicans, Israelis, Turks, Indians, Argentinians et al be involved?

Most EU countries undoubtedly have immensely more resources to devote to projects like this than the countries you mention, and the EU has had organisational structures for European cultural cooperation in place for decades. So I would say that idea is a non-starter. However, on the other hand I don't think it's by any means certain that cultural collaborations between UK and EU just come to a dead stop next March. There are plenty of EU-related cultural projects taking place in Serbia, for example. Mind you the Serbian government is trying to have the country enter the EU at the earliest opportunity (which probably won't be very early at all). Once more, this situation is so saturated with unknowns there's no way anyone can rationally predict how it will pan out.

[Lat-Literal]

On a factual point, are undergraduates including music undergraduates who are here at least initially for a 3 year period for the purpose of studying included in the immigration figures?

Genuinely, I don't know the answer.

Also, presumably they are permitted to be in some sort of paid employment alongside it?

How does that work?

Would it, in theory, be as easy to be paid for gigging, orchestra support work, electronica etc as to work in Pizza Express etc?

[MrGongGong]

Every sympathy. I think of you often. For those with the stamina here's a link to a survey of 992 arts and culture organisations dated 20 February 2018 commissioned by the Arts Council about the likely impact of the EU on the arts and culture sector. The executive summary is as follows:

"ICM conducted a survey of 992 arts and culture organisations to understand the impact of EU exit on their businesses. The survey offers new detail on issues including:

64% of organisations currently work inside the European Union, with ‘touring exhibitions’ and ‘sending UK artists abroad’ being the most popular types of activity.

40% need to regularly move equipment and objects between the UK and the EU.

Nearly half believe it is important to their organisation that both EU and UK citizens can work at short notice in either jurisdiction for short periods.

A third of organisations employ EU nationals, however this rises to over half in art forms such as Dance
The vast majority (89%) of organisations reported that artistic development was the most important reason for working across borders."

Remember, this is ALL we know at present, it's already out of date, and given the likely imperfections in the survey methodology, should be taken with a hefty pinch of salt. However, some interesting points are emerging, eg the differential impact in the Dance sector. Why's that?

The full report can be found here:

https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/publi...re-sector-2018

Thanks for this
It's a shame that some people (mostly those involved in politics) seem to have such little understanding of cultures to be able to understand why things are in such a worrying state.

[Beef Oven!]

Most EU countries undoubtedly have immensely more resources to devote to projects like this than the countries you mention, and the EU has had organisational structures for European cultural cooperation in place for decades. So I would say that idea is a non-starter. However, on the other hand I don't think it's by any means certain that cultural collaborations between UK and EU just come to a dead stop next March. There are plenty of EU-related cultural projects taking place in Serbia, for example. Mind you the Serbian government is trying to have the country enter the EU at the earliest opportunity (which probably won't be very early at all). Once more, this situation is so saturated with unknowns there's no way anyone can rationally predict how it will pan out.

I think it's a shame that these projects are reserved for rich countries only. I would hope that there is a way that poorer countries could be involved. Is it really that hard?

[MrGongGong]

Most EU countries undoubtedly have immensely more resources to devote to projects like this than the countries you mention, and the EU has had organisational structures for European cultural cooperation in place for decades. So I would say that idea is a non-starter. However, on the other hand I don't think it's by any means certain that cultural collaborations between UK and EU just come to a dead stop next March. There are plenty of EU-related cultural projects taking place in Serbia, for example. Mind you the Serbian government is trying to have the country enter the EU at the earliest opportunity (which probably won't be very early at all). Once more, this situation is so saturated with unknowns there's no way anyone can rationally predict how it will pan out.

There are plenty of other international collaborative projects as i'm sure you know many in the countries mentioned (several people whom i'm sure we both know were at a big event in Argentina last month for example)
And (to be clear) no-one is suggesting that there won't be ANY pan-EU projects involving the UK after March next year BUT ones like the one i'm involved in at the moment won't include the UK.

[Richard Barrett]

I think it's a shame that these projects are reserved for rich countries only. I would hope that there is a way that poorer countries could be involved. Is it really that hard?

Well, international cultural projects cost money, and it's principally European countries like Germany, France, Austria, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries whose governments have the cash and (just as crucial) see it as important to spend it on such things. And in most of those places cultural spending has taken a hit in recent years. Yes it really is that hard.

[Lat-Literal]

I am assuming that undergraduates - and even graduates - are not included in the immigration figures. I base this on some finger in the wind arithmetic. My assessment is that there are over 5,000 EU students at York University. That does not include what was the College of Ripon and St John. I further assess that there are over 6,000 EU students at Exeter University. I assess that there are a further 5,000 plus students at York University from non EU countries outside the UK (principally Chinese) and a further 6,000 plus students at Exeter University from EU countries outside the UK (principally Chinese). I will then make an educated guess that such figures are very commonplace throughout the university system with multiplications to be made as appropriate. This takes the overall numbers into hundreds of thousands. Additionally, I assess that the doubling of York's population alone since 1985 from 100,000 to 200,000 can more than half be accounted for by the number of existing students and those who were students and decided to stay on along with any subsequent offspring. I further note that the hospital resources in York - and Exeter - and not substantially changed since 1985, nor indeed is much of public transport, road infrastructure and even housing.

While I accept that people will be concerned about the UK's probable non-involvement in some EU collaborative mechanisms, including musical, I also think two further things. One, that if there can be an East-West Divan Orchestra as there is, then it should not beyond the wits of policy makers or indeed their objectives to build in formal collaborative EU-UK bridge building mechanisms in the transition processes (although I fear as with a "Digging for Britain" agricultural boost such things are and will be absent). Two, that the sheer "population terrain" as it were of recent times, and here I am thinking of students, past and present, is so changed because of the last couple of decades that there is a very strong argument for seeing a massive potential in cross-cultural collaboration purely in the now deeply diverse resource that is the people who live here. The latter point feels to me like up-to-date thinking.

[Beef Oven!]

Well, international cultural projects cost money, and it's principally European countries like Germany, France, Austria, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries whose governments have the cash and (just as crucial) see it as important to spend it on such things. And in most of those places cultural spending has taken a hit in recent years. Yes it really is that hard.

Yes, it's hard. But that hard?

I get the sense that we've become rather EuroUnion-centric in our approach to these things. This is an example of an enterprise that works well and I can't see why the model wouldn't work with music.

[french frank]

I am assuming that undergraduates - and even graduates - are not included in the immigration figures.

International students are included in immigration figures. There have been calls for them to be excluded, but a report last month came out against it.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-immigration/britain-should-keep-foreign-students-in-immigration-numbers-report-says-idUKKCN1LR1D7

[Lat-Literal]

International students are included in immigration figures. There have been calls for them to be excluded, but a report last month came out against it.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-br...-idUKKCN1LR1D7

Well, thank you French frank, and how interesting is that. But you may need to help me out here and indeed most other people because just as elsewhere in politics and the mass media we all talk about these things as if we really know what is going on. I for one do not. It may be that someone is pulling a fast one - for all I know it could be Mrs May herself. But how does this work exactly? What I think I am coming to see - and historically I am more proud of the university I attended than the school I attended by a very long way - is that the modern big business university sector could almost be operating policy wise, perhaps inadvertently in that it is so focussed on raking in money for itself, like some sort of new column.

Consider this. In the good old days (that is my opinion; others will disagree and that is fine), York University had a population of 3,000 ish, most of whom were probably British born though far from all. This was not 1963 or 1964 when the new wave of universities was built. It was slap bang in the Thatcher era. 1985. It was wholly typical. From memory of the lists of what were called universities then, there were about 90 or 100 of them. That figure has probably at least doubled or even tripled since the polytechnics and other HE establishments have been made into universities. But let us for a moment pretend we are still in the past and call it just 100. 100 multiplied by 5,000 equals 500,000 EU students. 100 multiplied by 6,000 equals a further 600,000 foreign students from outside the EU. Now you could say, well, not all universities are the size of York and Exeter. No, some are considerably bigger.

Or perhaps all are not as consciously diverse. Except I happen to know by way of anecdote that someone who has just joined a university in Canterbury although not the University of Kent to do an arts course as a very mature student is meeting all kinds of wonderful, friendly people. There is the one from Poland. The one from Latvia. The one from Nepal. He is very happy about it. All are less than half his age and he hasn't met anyone who was born like him in Britain yet. Anyhow, now forget about him and there. Those original 100 universities.

That is 1.1 million from outside of Britain alone. I suppose in the wayward manner of today's economists, well, hey, that is not so much in excess of 750,000. But when they say 750, 000 there are further problems aren't there. 1. They say they come here each year - is that then just one academic year's worth or the full three? 2. None of this includes anyone who has come here not to be a student. And 3. Aren't we all being told the official total immigration figure pa is in the 300,000s so how can it be that 750,000 students plus are included???

[Richard Barrett]

I get the sense that we've become rather EuroUnion-centric in our approach to these things.

Britain is culturally part of Europe in very many ways and always has been, as well of course as being geographically part of it.

What I see from my perspective is that funding for the kind of musical projects I'm involved in is being reduced almost everywhere (except for example in the USA where it was never there in the first place) and one way of working with this problem is to pool resources across countries. If the UK were to be excluded from such networks and retain as much activity in this kind of area as is going on now, there would have to be a fairly considerable increase in institutional support for it, and I don't see that being part of the Tory post-Brexit economic plan.

[Beef Oven!]

Britain is culturally part of Europe in very many ways and always has been, as well of course as being geographically part of it.

What I see from my perspective is that funding for the kind of musical projects I'm involved in is being reduced almost everywhere (except for example in the USA where it was never there in the first place) and one way of working with this problem is to pool resources across countries. If the UK were to be excluded from such networks and retain as much activity in this kind of area as is going on now, there would have to be a fairly considerable increase in institutional support for it, and I don't see that being part of the Tory post-Brexit economic plan.

That's quite reactive. The health example model I gave takes on stiffer obstacles and is proactive.

[french frank]

Well, thank you French frank, and how interesting is that but you may need to help me out here

I'm not sure what you're asking, Lat. You mention "EU students" but I'm not sure that they're even the majority of students.

The matter was considered controversial because an 'immigrant' is technically someone who enters a country intending to stay and settle, which students seldom intend. Mrs May took the definition of a 'migrant' as one entering the country and staying for more than 12 months. She estimated (I think this was when she was Home Secretary) that some 100,000 students stayed on after their visas had expired, but research showed that the figure was about 5,000 - an overestimate of, what? 1000%?

["The first-ever publication of official figures on the number of people leaving the UK has revealed that only 4,600 international students overstayed their visas last year, overturning previous suggestions that the number was closer to 100,000."]

[Lat-Literal]

I'm not sure what you're asking, Lat. You mention "EU students" but I'm not sure that they're even the majority of students.

The matter was considered controversial because an 'immigrant' is technically someone who enters a country intending to stay and settle, which students seldom intend. Mrs May took the definition of a 'migrant' as one entering the country and staying for more than 12 months. She estimated (I think this was when she was Home Secretary) that some 100,000 students stayed on after their visas had expired, but research showed that the figure was about 5,000 - an overestimate of, what? 1000%?

["The first-ever publication of official figures on the number of people leaving the UK has revealed that only 4,600 international students overstayed their visas last year, overturning previous suggestions that the number was closer to 100,000."]

No, they are not, I think, even the majority of overseas students by a moderate margin. I say "I think" because for all of the hours and hours and hours that are spent on these matters by the entertainment industry so that everyone gets hot under the collar, nobody is told the facts. That is the politics and economics of madness. It is, I believe, the same stuff of the economic crash. We were all left in the dark until that happened. Now, I do understand where Mr Gong Gong and others are coming from. It must be so terribly worrying if your employment is linked to this conundrum along with your long held values. Having been a victim of policy myself in that way, I really do have the personal experience to understand.

But I have to ask - where EU funding of his and others' areas are concerned - which countries in the EU are principally paying for them? Is it Germany or France because it can hardly be the poorer countries? Are we being subsidised by them or is it often our money circulated around Brussels and back again? If it is the latter, some of this is a point about what sort of priorities any UK Government outside the EU would have and whether they would be there. That is the domain of voting and elections. Next, there is that thing about "we must never go into war in Europe again". That was the one which persuaded many of us back in the 1970s and for a long time afterwards. How wonderful to make peace in musical collaboration etc.

Except as I have said, there is no reason other than indifference and trivial, childish, pique on either side, for such things not to continue. Thirdly, if the worry is somehow that we will all suddenly become terribly insular and English and white, all I can say is that if this country has even half a million students from abroad at any one time who are among the brightest and most talented and it still can't organise cross-cultural events lasting from January to December, it deserves to fail. The very idea of it not being able to do so is utterly ludicrous.

As for overseas international students overstaying their visas, I am in mixed mind on that point because a part of me is against this sort of 3 year flow inwards and outwards where it is Communist and some very dubious right wing regimes who benefit along with private enterprise higher education. That is, to the detriment of us enjoying fully the benefits of their skills and education and an organic development socially of populations where change occurs at a pace where there is a built in anchor. I would quite like us to keep a greater number of them than we do while dramatically slowing inward future flow. As far as I can ascertain it, that idea unfortunately flies in the face of today's right wing, left wing and centrist philosophies.

I hope this is helpful.

[Beef Oven!]

Health issues translate across cultures in a way that music doesn't, quite apart from the fact that they have an obvious greater urgency.

I'm not sure that's true. One of the obstacles to establishing a common approach on health is an ambivalent and fatalistic (no pun) complexion on mortality outside of the western mind-set - the assumption of urgency is not shared.

The thing is that it's a fact that institutional financial support for non-commercial artistic activity is primarily a European phenomenon, and the extent to which it exists in other countries is in direct proportion to the influence of Europe on their cultures (as in for example Australia or Canada).

But funding, crudely understood, is purely a material phenomenon. And again, a very western one. The dynamic need not purely be money to get this going.

There's really no getting around this, however one might with to cast one's net wider than the immediate vicinity. Everything that you suggest is no doubt possible, but it doesn't seem very likely to me to become reality, and it certainly isn't going to be possible for individual artists to make it one.

ibid

I'm not speaking as a fan of the European Union, as you know.

Indeed.