Political Activism of Jeremiah Creosote

## Support for The Labour Party

Creosote has been involved in politics throughout his professional career, he was famously critical of the Thatcher government during the 1980s, joining Red Wedge for various shows in the run up to the 1987 election. He was heavily critical of the process of privatization, and took part in a debate at The University of York in 1990 on the subject, arguing in favour of re-instating nationalized utilities.

Many at the time were genuinely surprised to hear such clarity and seriousness from the fun loving rockstar. Creosote went on to write a series of articles reflecting on the Thatcher years in the wake of her resignation that same year. He continued to criticise the Major government into the 1990s, spurred on by the ascension of Tony Blair to Labour Leader. He described Blair as being left wing 'enough for me' while 'still being proper', many noted his degree of eloquence when discussing political matters had declined steeply, and he struggled to find as many radio spots and newspaper columns to voice his opinions in as a result. This led to the creation of the short lived 'Rabble Rousahs' Radio' broadcast on AM frequencies towards the end of 1994, in which Creosote rambled about politics and brought on a variety of guests.

Creosote stated his support for Jeremy Corbyn, attempting to release a single called 'Jeremy Phwoarbyn' several times from 2017-19, from which he needed dissuading by friends and colleagues, who staged three interventions to prevent his releasing the track online. In an interview for The Metro in May 2021, Creosote claimed to still be a 'reluctant' Labour member.

## US Politics

In 2004 Mr Creosote endorsed John Kerry in the United States presidential election, appearing at a campaign rally in Boston, Massachusetts on 24th September. Creosote went on to voice support for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, then Bernie Sanders in 2016. Upon Sanders' loss to Hillary Clinton the primaries, Creosote claimed to have withdrawn his financial donations to the Democratic Party. He re-stated his support for Sanders in 2020 numerous times and condemned Trump as 'worse than me on mah worst day'. He subsequently Tweeted support for Joe Biden and photographed himself opening a 'Goliath' sized champagne bottle (27 litres) upon his victory on November 7th.

## On Brexit

After the election of New Labour in 1997 Creosote became inactive in UK politics, distracted by his new band rivalry and setting up Creosote Inc., though he later commented he first formed Euro-sceptic views in the early 2000s. Finally in 2015 he claimed in an interview to be "contented" with the majority Conservative government, as they "seemed to have things on track". When questioned further on precisely what he meant, he simply replied "Look now, I've done the politics thing I've said me bits and bobs, but now I'm older I can recognise its time to make peace with the way of things and not cause too much of a stir...focus on a small specific achievable change you want to bring about, such as my green energy initiatives in Scotland, and see it through, if everyone did that we'd have a lot less bother.".

In under a year Creosote appeared to dramatically U-turn on this worldview, getting caught up in the Vote Leave campaign in 2016. He was booted out of Vote Leave on March 3rd 2016 for his erratic and raucous behaviour, and rejected from joining Leave.EU for similar reasons. Not one to be set back, he set up his own campaign, Creosote Says Leave!, and belted around the country in a second hand removal van with a PA system rigged inside. He would regularly use this to interrupt actual Vote Leave press visits to towns.

Creosote's fight for the leave option culminated in an appearance on Question Time on May 23rd 2016. Creosote sat with an enormous pile of papers in front of him, and repeatedly interrupted David Dimbleby and the other guests. The whole episode introduced a new generation to he bizarre personality of Creosote, and it is partly attributed to his continued notoriety in the UK.

Prior to the 2017 general election, Creosote claimed on Twitter that his Brexit campaign was actually an attempt to discredit Vote Leave through elaborate parody. The announcement met with a mixed response, with many sceptical of whether this was actually the case. A week later, Howard Taft claimed Creosote had told him as much in an email in May 2016.