Bat for Lashes’ Natasha Khan on Why Brexit Needed to Happen
Bat for Lashes held a webchat with fans Wednesday to promote her new LP The Bride, and when asked about her thoughts on the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union, Natasha Khan was optimistic about the massive changes that are about the sweep her home country.
“I do believe the breakdown of the EU, whether I agree with it or not, is a symptom of a greater breakdown,” the Bat For Lashes singer wrote on The Guardian. “Although it’s painful for us in the near future, including for artists and musicians, I somehow have the sense it needs to happen to revolutionize the structures on which we build our society … It’s a wake-up call.”
For Khan, the Brexit decision, fueled in part by anti-immigration rhetoric, was also somewhat disappointing, as she is the daughter of a Pakistani father who emigrated to the U.K. “I’m obviously devastated by the message that this choice has put out to the world, because I’m a product of a multicultural society,” Khan wrote.
Still, while that facet of the Brexit decision is upsetting, Khan recognized that the European Union as it stood wasn’t fulfilling its promises.
“However, I’d like to offer some reassurance in the fact that I think the corporate structures of our world are not serving us and haven’t done for many years,” Khan added, “and even though this is a scary time of unrest and upheaval, looking at it from a grander perspective, it’s an important part of the breakdown of outmoded political and economic models.”
Watch British Prime Minister David Cameron address Members of Parliament on Brexit and Britain’s next steps.