Bracing for Brexit: What does the future hold for the British cultural and creative sector?
Brexit. Otherwise known as the unfolding disaster British politicians are currently navigating in an effort to extricate the UK from the European Union.
The cultural and creative sector (CCS) barely features in the public debate, with concern being expressed almost exclusively from within the industry. The cultural sector remains a low political priority in the UK.
One notable exception to this can be found in right-wing discourse around ‘national pride’. In this context, cultural works feature heavily—think Elgar’s symphonies, Turner’s paintings, and ‘Rule, Britannia!’ on the final night of the BBC Proms—in ongoing political rhetoric around what constitutes British culture. ‘We must protect our national culture and heritage, which is being threatened from external and internal influences’, is the oft-used line of nationalists.
Threats from within typically include local cultural institutions, which are seen as left-wing strongholds that are constantly attempting to impose a liberal and multicultural agenda on the general populace. Funnily enough, when politicians sounding the alarm about the dilution and loss of national culture are asked the precise composition of national culture, they tend to repeat the most generic and shallow sound bites, directly exposing the superficiality of their arguments. Oh well, such is politics…
The UK’s role in the European cultural and creative sector
Back in the real world, the UK has built itself into a huge contributor to the European CCS. Films and pop music produced in the UK are popular and influential across Europe. How have they managed this with little institutional support? For one, the Thatcherite budget cuts of the 70s and 80s forced British cultural institutions to quickly develop a thorough understanding of private funding and fundraising. For another, Brits, generally speaking, have put in the effort and surpassed their European peers in developing strategy around audience development and engagement in the arts.
“When European policy-making turned its focus on capacity building, audience development and new business models for the arts, the UK cultural and creative organisations took a leading role in international cooperation projects. ”
In contrast, cultural institutions from continental Europe continue to rely on what is readily available to them: sustainable, long-term and rather generous public funding programmes. When European policy-making turned its focus on capacity building, audience development and new business models for the arts, the UK cultural and creative organisations took a leading role in international cooperation projects.
Brexit will therefore be a significant blow to the CCS, as the UK has long been the more adept at ‘selling’ culture to consumers, as well as investors, and helping their European counterparts to do the same.
Our post-Brexit predictions
We can already predict severe disruption to cultural exchange and knowledge sharing if the UK manages to get a reasonable Brexit deal passed. And since that scenario is looking increasingly unlikely, it’s worth noting that the eventuality of a ‘no-deal’ Brexit instead would be absolutely disastrous for the UK CCS. Two thirds of UK cultural and creative organisations have been active in transnational projects over the last two years. Amongst European countries the UK ranks highly on cultural spending provided by the EU (for example, via the Creative Europe and Horizon 2020 programmes), surpassed only by France and Germany.
With a soft Brexit, the UK organisations benefiting from EU funding could at least be assured of project funding until the end of the current programme period (2020), but a hard Brexit would signal an immediate cut-off point, as the UK would automatically revert to a ‘third country’, ineligible to receive EU funding. The only workaround in this case would be specific bilateral agreements, hopes for which are relatively low, given the squeezed time frames, as well as the aforementioned lack of political priority given to the sector.
“A hard Brexit would signal an immediate cut-off point, as the UK would automatically revert to a ‘third country’, ineligible to receive EU funding.”
At TrueMotion, we have seen first-hand the waves of uncertainty hitting UK organisations. We worked to get EU funding for a project with a British lead, who have now been forced to delegate project coordination responsibilities to their German partners, in order to stave off the possibility of a complete project shutdown. Meanwhile, through no fault of their own, they might soon be completely excluded from a project they secured and nurtured. With an anxious mood hanging heavy over the sector, UK organisations can do nothing but wait for the politicians to see the process of Brexit through, and then make sense of what the developments will mean for them.
Arne van Vliet is the Creative Director of TrueMotion. He’s passionate about the creative arts and specialises in finding funding for innovative creative projects that are reshaping the arts landscape in Europe.