Morrissey is attempting to sue Conor McNicholas, the NME‘s former editor and its publisher IPC Media for libel. A hearing was held at the High Court on Monday, which Morrissey did not attend. Today the senior libel judge, Mr Justice Tugendhat, will annouce whether this claim for a trial has been accepted.
The case centres around an interview that Morrissey gave to the NME in November 2007, in which he referred to an “immigration explosion”. He was also quoted as saying: “Although I don’t have anything against people from other countries, the higher the influx into England the more the British idenitity disappears.”
In his written submission to the court, Morrissey said that the 2007 interview had attracted significant attention from the press and that “Question marks over my being a racist have never since receded”. The former lead singer of the Smiths has always denied allegations of racism. Another controversial episode in the singer’s career happened onstage in Finsbury Park in 1992, when he wrapped himself up in a Union jack, leading to accusations by the NME that he was “flirting with disaster” and racist imagery.
Morrissey first threatened to take legal action against the magazine soon after the interview was published in 2007. His lawyers set a deadline by which the publication had to apologise before legal action would begin, but the NME issued no such apology. Acting for the magazine, Catrin Evans alleged that the three year gap between Morrissey’s first complaint and the recent hearing suggests that, “this is not a genuine bid for vindication … [The claim] simply didn’t figure at the forefront of his mind.”
If Morrissey’s claim is successful, the main evidence for the trial will be a full transcript of the 2007 interview and e-mail correspondence between Morrissey’s manager and the NME.
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