‘It’s time for Labour to deliver on its promise for the UK’s touring musicians and creatives’

“We will…. seek to …. help our touring artists,” said the 2024 Labour manifesto. It was a simple and straightforward commitment. The disastrous Tory and Farage form of Brexit has caused untold misery for many musicians, whose livelihoods and growing careers rely on EU music festivals and concerts. 

Be it the historic glittering concert spaces of Paris or Milan or the vast open air music festivals across the European summer, UK artists have found bookings plummet, bureaucracy soar and costs explode, forcing many to give up working in the EU at all. The effect of Brexit on the creative sector in general has been devastating.

Labour’s 2024 manifesto promised a lifeline 

At the general election, Labour included key commitments to musicians, focusing on ensuring EU touring rights alongside supporting music education and improving workers’ rights. Labour’s Creative Industries Sector Plan, published in 2025, builds on this with a powerful statement of intent: “We will make it easier for UK artists to perform in Europe, and deliver mutual economic and cultural benefits for the UK and the EU.” The government knows how important the music industry is to the UK economy, and its role in driving economic growth. 

With that understanding, there have been significant steps forward. The Common Understanding between the European Commission and the United Kingdom explicitly recognised the value of artistic exchange. More broadly, in January this year, Labour announced a 5% funding uplift for arts organisations as part of a £1.5bn package to protect cultural venues. There’s £27 million in funding to support innovation, skills development and job creation in the creative industries. 

The landmark Employment Act 2026 progressed important elements of workers’ rights for UK-based employed workers, including measures to deal with the unfairness of zero hours contracts, the gender pay gap and day one sick pay, with work on supporting freelancers still to come. 

At the same time, as we approach the halfway mark of the Labour government’s term in office, we have to hold Labour’s feet to the fire on their manifesto commitment and spotlight what musicians and artists in the UK and Europe are still crying out for.

The argument for ‘why’ has been won. Most recently, a Cultural Exchange Coalition event in Brussels spotlighted a strong appetite among MPs, MEPs, artists and cultural organisations in the UK and the EU to make touring easier. 

Now is the time to renew this promise and back British music while music backs Britain.

This is why the Musician’s Union and Labour International – the CLP for members living and often working abroad – are calling for a number of commitments from the Government: 

• Measures to support touring: expanding existing exemptions for short cultural engagements and creating a dedicated touring visa for longer term touring activity 
• Reducing red tape: exploring ways to ease carnet and cabotage rules, and make it easier for artists and bands to travel with and sell merchandise
• Joining Creative Europe – which will be renamed Agora EU: providing access to new funding avenues for increased UK-EU creative collaboration and co-production. 

Low/no pay from music streaming, regulating AI companies, and ensuring that creative workers’ rights are respected are part of the same story. That means strengthening copyright laws to ensure fair streaming royalties, and consent, labelling and fair remuneration for all human creators for the use of their work to train generative AI models. 

It must also mean the introduction of new and stronger publicity, personality and personal data rights to make sure artists get to decide what happens to their voice and image, and stronger protections for freelance workers including the right to a written contract and measures to tackle late payment of fees. 

If we don’t address these barriers, we will see the full collapse of UK creatives representing the industry abroad, and a further drop in EU artists and educators visiting the UK’s arts spaces.

It is time to stand strong with one of our most valuable exports: our musicians. 

The Tory Brexit has been devastating on our legacy and infrastructure of creative excellence. The potential for growth and even cultural soft power with friends and international rivals depends on strategic decisions being prioritised to give cultural travel the same urgency as the excellent progress made on the Erasmus+ program for young people.

The argument was agreed in 2024; it is time to “just do it.”

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