Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong is wrong to say he’ll renounce his US citizenship over Roe v Wade

Amid a furious cultural backlash against the US Supreme Court’s decision to burn Roe v Wade, which guaranteed a woman’s right to an abortion, Billie Joe Armstrong upped the ante.

The Green Day front man said he planned to renounce his citizenship at a London show. “F**k America. There’s too much f***ing stupid in the world”, he explained, not without justification, before going on to suggest that he planned to move to the UK.

Which itself has plenty of stupid. As evidenced by its crook of a prime minister, his dribbling on about things he’s patently failed to “deliver” and his arrogantly planning on a Putinesque third term before bothering to ask his voters for a second. Those voters have not proved overly keen on the incredible sulk turned party animal, turned amateur architect of £150,000 kids’ treehouses, of late.

But back to Armstrong’s statement, and why I say that it was wrong of him to make it. Publicly threatening to quit one’s country as an act of political protest is almost always something to be avoided, except where one is faced with an extreme situation, such as being under physical threat from a regime.

For a start, it’s simply grist to the mill of the other side. They’re inevitably the first people to cheer. Their natural response is to say, great, now would you kindly close the door on your way out? That’s what you’ll hear from the yahoos, Trump mini mes and woman-haters who spit bile on Fox News.

I confess, too, that the first thing I think when I hear some whinging businessmen bellyaching about the prospect of a more progressive government in Britain and promising to sod off to Monaco (if it’ll have them) if and when we vote for it, is go on, get lost then. We’ll get on fine without you.

Armstrong’s suggestion is an encouragement to the snarling assholes, who act as cheerleaders for horrible politicians who do horrible things and cry: “If you don’t like it, leave.” A wealthy rock star, obviously, has that option. Global mobility is automatically conferred upon the rich. If your net worth exceeds seven, better still eight, figures you can pitch your tent wherever you choose. Especially if you’re white.

If you’re poor, and/or have brown or Black skin, not so much. They are the people who have to live with the consequences of what those politicians and their judicial activist friends do. They are the people for whom another hungry mouth to feed means that no one gets properly fed. Or housed. Or clothed.

It is America’s economically disadvantaged women who will bear the brunt of the abortion bans enacted across half of America’s states. Global mobility? I imagine they’d thank the lord simply for having enough money to put food on the table.

Another thing that renouncing one’s citizenship in opposition to the demise of Roe does is to deprive the supporters of women’s reproductive rights of a vote. Now, I have a confession to make here. Regular readers may remember that I recently wrote about my plan to spoil my ballot in opposition to our Labour council’s record on the rights of disabled people which affects me personally (because I am disabled) and close family members.

The alternative option was a trio of Tory candidates (no Liberal Democrat stood in our ward) which for me was no alternative at all given their record on the same subject, even had the prime minister not broken the law by presiding over Downing Street as lockdown party central while his countrymen and women died in their thousands.

When it comes to Roe, however, there is a very clear choice between an anti-choice, anti-democracy party (the Republicans) and a democratic pro-choice party (the Democrats). The latter aren’t perfect by any means. I regularly speak to American friends driven up the wall by them. But if Roe is your issue – and it should be everyone’s issue – you should stay. And vote. And vote for them.

Not just in the presidential or congressional elections, but down ballot too. It is in state houses up and down the US that the “trigger” laws banning abortion – including sometimes in the case of rape and even incest – the Supreme Court has given the green light to were formulated. It is only by voting that these awful laws will be overturned.

I will be voting in the next general election. No spoiled papers there. No spoiled papers in future. It was a one off protest out of frustration over our council. No more spoiled papers (which is still a democratic choice). If a Labour led government backslides on disability rights (as I fear it will) I’ll shout about it here (y’hear Wes Streeting?).

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Anger about one’s country like Armstrong displayed, is A-OK. A strong democracy accepts it, and ought to reflect on it. Armstrong has expressed his rage eloquently in the past. He reached far more people than I ever will by venting it with American Idiot, arguably his band’s signature album. It took aim at George W Bush and the politics of that era, particularly the Iraq War, even if only a couple of the songs were obviously political.

As well as a disastrous conflict, it’s worth remembering that Bush was responsible for two of the Conservative justices who have steered America down the dark path it has taken with respect to women’s reproductive rights. Samuel Alito, the writer of the majority opinion overturning Roe, was one of his.

So, Billie Joe, while you’d certainly be welcome here, because we could use some help against our very own idiot; the simpering blond bombshell in Number 10, I’d urge you to reconsider giving up your citizenship and your vote.

I understand your frustration. I feel it about this country. But it’s needed stateside too. So is your money. You could use it to help with the battle America’s women face. It’s a life or death struggle. I’m not exaggerating there, because some of those bans don’t even make exceptions for threats to the life of the mother.