The oldest record store in the world has now banned all of Morrissey’s releases due to his controversial political beliefs.
As a result of Morrissey’s support of a right-wing extremist party, Spillers Records in Cardiff Wales made the decision to no longer carry his music.
The store was established in 1894 and is the city’s main spot for purchasing concert tickets and hosting artist signings and in-store gigs.
“I’m saddened but ultimately not surprised that Spillers is unable to stock Morrissey’s releases any longer,” record store owner Ashli Todd told Wales Online “I only wished I’d done it sooner”.
The former Smiths frontman has recently appeared on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon wearing a pin badge bearing the logo of For Britain, a political party founded by anti-Islam activist Anne Marie Waters. He was also seen wearing the pin during his New York Residency.
His support for the party was first reported in 2018 when Morrissey expressed his political views in an interview. The interview features him criticising the “loony left” and going on a long and confused rant about how they “seem to forget Hitler was left-wing”.
The increasingly controversial former frontman of The Smiths has been making headlines his outspoken support of the far right. He voiced support of EDL founder Tommy Robinson in the wake of his sentencing for contempt of court, saying: “It’s very obvious that Labour or the Tories do not believe in free speech … I mean, look at the shocking treatment of Tommy Robinson.” He described halal meat preparation as evil and “requires certification that can only be given by supporters of Isis”; he told the NME in 2007 that “the higher the influx into England the more the British identity disappears … the gates of England are flooded. The country’s been thrown away”;
Furthermore, back in 2010, Morrissey described Chinese people as a “subspecies”.
Morrissey retaliated to the pulling of his records by releasing a statement to his website, titled “Because this is how I am“. He says: “In these days when most people are afraid to even whisper, the print media write as if someone is coming to get them”. He was also thanked by Waters for helping drive traffic to her party’s website and sell the badges Morrissey was wearing in his interview.
