Cut to 2016. Against a background of post-Brexit tensions Morrissey has yet again invited contempt for his serial views regarding race and ethnicity. Last week, he said that London‘s first Muslim mayor Sadiq Khan „eats Halal butchered beings and talks so quickly that people don‘t understand him… and that suits the British media perfectly.“ Pop‘s own Prince Phillip is no stranger to such remarks, in the past speculating on whether the Chinese are a „sub-species“ and complaining that „the gates are flooded and anybody can have access to England and join in.“. All of these are given as signs of the degeneration of a once-radical figure, but right from the outset, Morrissey and The Smiths represented a fatally reactionary moment in British pop culture – a severing of punk and post-punk‘s honourable links with black musics.