John Lydon – aka Johnny Rotten, the former Sex Pistols front man – has voiced support for Brexit, and some seem to think this is a good thing. Appearing on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, he said: ‘Where do I stand on Brexit? Well, here it goes, the working class have spoke and I’m one of them and I’m with them,’ before revealing he admires Nigel Farage.
Perhaps he should have left it there, but This Morning was only the beginning of Rotten’s slithery journey across the nation’s media. After all, he has a book to promote! (Mr Rotten’s Songbook, if you’re interested – out on 31 March). Later on, Rotten could be found in the Guardian telling its music editor about everything from his childhood ‘poo-poo’ explosions, to his nasal passages, before moving on again to the EU referendum, chanting: ‘We’ve got Brexit, so let’s exit.’
I know what some will think when they see all this. They will think it’s amusing, bold and exciting that the original punk rocker has joined the Brexit cause; that he gives the movement some sort of energetic, anti-establishment edge. ‘Conservative is the new counter-culture,’ wrote one Twitter pundit, revelling in the star’s TV confession. But God help us! And God Save Brexit now Rotten has climbed on board. He is exactly the type of personality that gives Brexit a bad name.
I say this as someone who once loved The Sex Pistols, even in spite of being born in the wrong generation. That’s how good they were – they could transcend to the playground of the noughties, where my teenage self tuned into Bodies again and again. What a song; both feral and political. I didn’t care that I was a public schoolgirl whose parents owned an orchard. I was a punk, ok?
Eventually I snapped out of this Sex Pistols hypnosis. And that wasn’t because I’d moved onto more 21st-century appropriate music, but because I’d seen Rotten on I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. It made me see the man for what he is: an opportunistic yobo. Weirdly, he was so rude that I found myself rooting for Jordan – the glamour model – who was the regular victim of Rotten’s anger. ‘How dare he!’ I wanted to shout at the television, while Jordan sat on a rock, pouting and calling for Peter Andre.
Overall, I couldn’t help feeling that Rotten was probably a sexist; a suspicion that was only strengthened in 2013, when he told a female Australian news presenter to ‘shut up when a man is talking’. Perhaps this explains why he doesn’t seem to mind Donald Trump – he has confessed he considers the president to be a ‘possible friend’.
What is most troubling about Rotten is just how fickle he is. Despite once describing the monarchy as a ‘fascist regime’, he recently told a rock website that he would miss the Queen when she dies, and that he even enjoyed the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding in 2012. A rather serious change of heart, indeed. This inconsistency is why anyone who voted for Brexit should be extremely wary of him. At the moment, he is trying to capitalise on Britain’s post-Brexit divide in order to flog books.
Johnny Rotten only serves to perpetuate the idea that Brexit’s most vocal supporters are rabid sensationalists – and that fifty-two percent of the country is enamoured with his sort of loud, obnoxious rhetoric. But the referendum was a considered decision for the majority of people – based on a range of economic – as well as philosophical – reasons. Rotten’s efforts to turn the referendum into some sort of second-wave punk movement should be ignored. There really will be anarchy in the UK if he comes to represent Brexit.
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