Currently in the middle of a residency at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater on Broadway, Morrissey stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last night to run through his cover of Jobriath’s “Morning Starship,” as included on California Sun, his upcoming album consisting of mostly covers (out May 24). As Stereogum points out, Morrissey’s performance also included a guest appearance by the right-wing extremist party For Britain, in the form of a pin on the former Smiths singer’s lapel. It takes zooming in on a high-definition photo from the performance to be sure, but the image on the pin is definitely the notoriously anti-Muslim party’s trident logo:
This message of support does not come out of nowhere—far from it, in fact. Morrissey backed the For Britain Movement in April of last year and is featured on the party’s website. Previous to the formation of For Britain, Morrissey had been a champion of Anne Marie Waters, a candidate for leader of the UK Independence party, claiming that the election was “rigged” after she failed to win the seat in 2017. Waters’ policies prompted UKIP leader Henry Bolton and even right-wing politician and pundit Nigel Farage to deem many of her supporters “Nazis and racists.” This inspired Waters to found For Britain, a more uncompromising and extreme party than UKIP.
On Fallon, Democratic presidential candidate (and mayor of South Bend, Indiana) Pete Buttigieg and Milo Ventimiglia were also guests. Ventimiglia wore a Morrissey shirt to the show, and discussed his childhood love of the Smiths, saying “When I was a kid, I wore my hair like Morrissey. I dressed like Morrissey. He kind of consumed my life.” How far we’ve all come.
Watch Morrissey’s performance below.
