John Cleese on leaving the UK: the country ‘is in a mess’ 2018

Aug 20, 2018

(15 Aug 2018) JOHN CLEESE ON LEAVING THE UK: THE COUNTRY 'IS IN A MESS' John Cleese says he's leaving the U.K. because the country "is in a mess at the moment." In an interview with The Associated Press, the 78-year-old actor discussed his plans to move to the Caribbean in protest over what he sees as a lack of honest political discourse in the U.K.. The "Monty Python" star said he intended to return to Britain once "(we elect) a government that's decent and might actually start improving this country" – but added that that "might be a long time." Cleese first announced his plans to relocate to the island of Nevis in a July interview with the BBC's "Newsnight." On the program, the star cited the lack of honest debate around Brexit, disappointment with "how the country is run" and the "lying and triviality" of British newspapers as his main reasons for leaving. Cleese backed Leave in the 2016 referendum and, during his "Newsnight" appearance, he hit out at what he called the "dreadful lies on the right" and the response from Remain politicians about the benefits of leaving the EU. "I am sickened by the corruption and it isn't until you start studying it that you begin to realize what's going on," Cleese told the AP in London recently, while shooting season three of ABC sitcom "Speechless." "The (news)papers are so much a part of it that they censor things. Go on my Twitter site and see the interview that I just did with two journalists who used to be on 'the dark side' and it makes your hair stand on end because you realize that the British public is not hearing anything remotely like the truth." The actor was referring to a recent conversation with former-Sunday Mirror journalist Graham Chapman, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to phone hacking, and ex-Sunday Times investigator John Ford, who claims to have used illegal methods to obtain information for the paper. Cleese was also a prominent backer of calls to establish a second phase of the Leveson Inquiry – a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press. However, in May 2018, MPs voted against continuing the investigation. "The two things that I've spent my, well, a lot of time on were proportional representation and Leveson 2 and both of them were overcome or stifled by the right-wing press." Cleese said he's looking forward to his upcoming move. "The first thing that I'm doing is my wife and I are going to Nepal to look at tigers for 12 days. And then I've got six or seven shows in the (United) States and then I shall go to Nevis, which is the nicest little island. We were there January and February and we fell in love with it," he explained. "It will be more convenient for America, because most of my work is outside England and most of it's in America," he added. "And also I'll be nearer to my daughters."