In the new issue of Hot Press, Billy Bragg takes some well-aimed potshots at the man who’s the firm favourite to takeover from Theresa May as Conservative Party leader.
“You’ll notice that Boris Johnson hasn’t apologised for his letterbox burqa slur – and was cleared by the Conservative Party of any wrongdoing,” he reflects. “I’ve not heard a single mea culpa from Boris Johnson who’s not being held accountable by the mainstream media and acting with impunity.
"When you’re making statements designed to marginalise particular minorities, you’re using liberty to close down freedom. It’s the opposite of emancipating people and it needs to be stridently called out.”
The threat of a No Deal Brexit, Bragg continues, has helped fuel the growth of the New IRA.
“A No Deal Brexit… must in some ways validate those recalcitrant republicans who’ve said all along that, ‘We’re going to be betrayed’ – ‘Well, here’s the betrayal!’ You could see how they’d use that to recruit these young men, and they do seem to be very young. Whether it’s Lyra or a copper who’d been shot, the return of firearms to the streets of Northern Ireland is incredibly disturbing.”
In an impassioned interview that coincides with the release of his The Three Dimensions Of Freedom political pamphlet, the Bard of Barking also talks Trump, Biden, Thatcher, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ben Shapiro, Danny Baker, Alabama’s abortion laws and his upcoming three-night Whelan’s residency.
“Waking up every day in the same bed is so much lower impact for both me and the environment,” he says. “It’s a really good format, which I’m looking forward to bringing to Dublin.”

You can… buy... the new Hot Press in stores (pause, wheeze)... today (May 24) or order it online below: