Morrissey Supporters Hit Out At The NME

The NME has been feeling the wrath of Morrissey fans who are outraged at the magazine’s controversial feature which attacks The Smiths man for voicing his opinion on immigration.

At the time of writing this piece, a massive 84% of Gigwise readers said that the magazine has betrayed Morrissey by publishing the feature.

In a quick nutshell, despite pleas from Morrissey’s management to retract the feature, and an NME journalist curiously abdicating responsibility for the comments in the piece, NME editor Conor McNicholas went ahead and published the piece calling Mozz’a opinion ‘Naïve and inflammatory.”

One particulraly damning section in the comments compares Morrissey's words to the BNP.

Amongst Morrissey’s quotes to the magazine was: “Britain’s a terribly negative place… with the issue of immigration, it’s very difficult because, although I don’t have anything against people from other countries, the higher the influx into England the more the identity disappears.”

Gigwise has received a number of messages from people blasting the NME for their hard line stance against Morrissey.

One wrote: “The NME are clearly mixing immigration with racism. I’m not against immigration at all, in fact it adds to our culture. But to even insinuate someone is racist for discussing immigration is very, very wrong.”

Another complained: “Immigration is, unlike racism, a hot topic which can be condemned or supported quite viably, either way. So it is NME being quite naive to suggest casting an derogatory view on immigration is a racist view.”

A clear Morrissey fan took it further, writing “I’m glad I have read this article before buying NME, as now I will not be buying it, Morrissey is a huge star, an icon - and if the rest of his fans feel like I do, then I shall be boycotting the NME from now on. Think they’ve shot themselves in the foot with this article.

However, some do support the magazine’s stance against Morrissey, summed up by a Gigwise reader writing: “I also have read the article and you cannot argue with the fact that Mozza’s words read like the BNP manifesto. An organization who’s views and opinions are rooted in racism and fascist thought. England may have a problem with immigration but this is not the root cause of England not being the same place as it was 50 years ago. His comments are misguided.”