Impact of Brexit on UK TV and film will be 'catastrophic'
Brexit has the potential to cause ‘catastrophic’ damage to the TV and film industry in the UK, according to a leading lobbying group.
The Creative Industries Federation is warning of an exodus of talent both in front of and behind the camera in an sector that brings in tens of billions of pounds a year to the UK economy.
“Losing access to crucial international talent will damage our ability to produce the films, books and television that define Britain around the world,” said the CIF’s chief executive officer John Kampfner.
“The end of freedom of movement poses a huge risk to the creative industries.”
According to a survey of 250 businesses in the creative sector undertaken by the CIF as part of its Global Talent report, 75 percent of companies said they employed EU nationals, and two thirds of those said they could not fill the same roles with domestic workers.
As for the visual effects industry, 30 percent of workers in the UK are EU nationals.
96 percent of the federation’s 1000-plus membership said that it didn’t want to leave the EU.
“But it’s not just the practicalities,” Kampfner added to The Guardian. “It’s atmospherics, too.
“It’s one thing to permit people to come and work in Britain, another to welcome them. Think of the brilliant young creative from, say, France, who comes here, does a bit of bar work to pay the rent, works his way up freelancing in his field, and five years later is a star. They just won’t come.
“They’ll go to Berlin, or Paris, or Athens, or Lisbon. Anecdotally, numbers are already down.”
Government figures place the combined creative industries as bringing in £87 billion to the UK economy – around 5.3 percent – on a par with the construction industry, and more than the car, life sciences, oil, gas and aerospace industries combined.
Meanwhile, two million people, six percent of the UK workforce, work in the creative industries, according to figures from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
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