Do we like Morrissey?
Our score: 2 out of 10. Years of his own words backing the party For Britain and brushing off race complaints, with real animal-welfare good set against it.
Born in Manchester in 1959 to a hospital porter and a librarian, Morrissey was a bookish kid who escaped into poetry, Oscar Wilde and pop music. In 1982 he formed the Smiths with Johnny Marr, and each of their four studio albums reached No. 1 or No. 2 in the UK before the split in 1987. He went solo in 1988 with Viva Hate and published his autobiography in 2013.
The harm test is where it falls over. In 2018 he published an open letter naming For Britain, a small party led by Anne Marie Waters, as the only British party that could “safeguard our security”, and told readers not to accept claims it is racist or fascist. In 2019 he doubled down, saying he isn't racist because “everyone ultimately prefers their own race”. He praised Waters too, even though a 2017 recording has her calling Muslim birthrates “dangerous”.
There's more in the same vein. In a 2017 Der Spiegel interview he called the allegations against Kevin Spacey “ridiculous” and suggested some of Harvey Weinstein's accusers “played along”, according to PinkNews. In 2023 he accused his old label Capitol of promoting Sam Smith's “satanism” while it held back his own album.
The recent news is more of the same. At Riot Fest in Chicago in September, community groups objected to his booking, citing his statements on immigration, and someone spray-painted park fencing with “Racist Morrissey not welcome!”. Weather cut his set to 50 minutes. In August his Las Vegas run was cancelled a week out for “logistical reasons”, his third scrapped show of 2026, and Turkish dates were pulled in 2025 after a 2012 video of him in an Israeli flag went viral.
He is also a man who likes a fight. He sued NME over a 2007 article he felt painted him as racist, and in 2012 it settled with a clarification and no damages. In 2022 he argued that diversity is “just another word for conformity”, and in 2023 he said the structure at Capitol “now appears fascist” after it shelved his album. That is the grievance-and-censorship story the harm test watches for.
Now the good stuff, because there is real good here, and it's about animals. He said he'd give the £10,000 he won from Channel 4 for using a Smiths track without permission to PETA's anti-foie-gras campaign. He asked for no meat at his 2013 Staples Center show, and he stayed out of Canada for years over the seal hunt before returning in 2019 to back PETA's Canada Goose campaign.