A history of the Smiths' beef: Morrissey and Johnny Marr's political divide

If you were looking for a Smiths reunion after Liam and Noel Gallagher from Oasis unexpectedly tabled their decades-long beef — you're out of luck.

The British rock band made of up Morrissey, Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce has been broken up for nearly four decades, and frontmen Morrissey and Marr have publicly stated their resistance to a reunion, due to their frayed relationship. After the band's breakup in 1987, Morrissey and Marr have ventured into solo careers and have hardly spoken to each other. In May 2023, Rourke died from pancreatic cancer.  Despite loss of the band's bassist and the animosity between Morrissey and Marr, fans are still clamoring for the Smiths will ever get back together. 

Here's a look at the bandmates' rocky history to see just how far-fetched it is to wish for any sort of reconciliation, much less a reunion.

The initial breakup

The Smiths changed the landscape of British rock in their short five years together. Starting their career in 1982, the indie rock band released four albums with Marr leaving the band right before the release of their fourth and final album "Strangeways, Here We Come."

Far Out Magazine reported that there were several reasons why the band decided to split up but it began with Marr's decision to take a pause from the band. The guitar player said he was exhausted from the relentless schedule of writing, recording and touring. Not long after, Marr quit the band permanently. There were whispers that Marr left the band because Morrissey was annoyed with Marr for working with other musicians. Marr clarified that it was not personal tension with Morrissey that caused him to leave. 

However, the guitarist told The Guardian in 2016 that reflecting on the band's split, most of it stemmed from the lack of management, which caused financial and business strains. Morrissey has also confirmed this perspective. The Smiths had a series of managers in their five years together. The role was eventually passed on to Marr, who was only 23 when the band split.

“It’s what split the band up. To this day, I haven’t met anyone who thinks a major rock group should be managed by the 23-year-old guitar player,” Marr said. “We were deemed unmanageable. When we fired managers, I always had to deal with it. I wasn’t prepared to do it, and so it became untenable. There was no way forward.”

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Marr stated that the differing personalities between himself and Marr made the Smiths a great band until it wasn't. 

“The differences in personalities are what often make for interesting chemistry, and, inevitably, [with] the differences in personality come [the] point when those things are gonna stop forward motion, I guess. I suppose as well; me and Morrissey just saw our futures differently,” Marr said.

The political divide between Marr and Morrissey 

Beyond that initial split, Marr and Morrissey's differing values kept them apart. In 2016 at the height of the Brexit movement, Morrissey caused controversy with the Smiths' fans with his stance supporting on the Brexit decision and conservative U.K. politician Nigel Farage. Farage has been criticized for being the architect behind Brexit and fanning anti-immigration rhetoric in Europe.

Morrissey said, “As for Brexit, the result was magnificent, but it is not accepted by the BBC or Sky News because they object to a public that cannot be hypnotised by BBC or Sky nonsense. These news teams are exactly the same as Fox and CNN in that they all depend on public stupidity in order to create their own myth of reality. Watch them at your peril!"

Not long after Morrissey's comments, Marr said on Sky News about a reunion: “I can only really speak for myself, I don’t feel like it’s necessary at all really.  I really like moving forward. Myself and Andy play together when I’m over in New York . . . he plays a couple of songs with me and that’s always really nice, but that’s really as far as it needs to go I think.”

When asked about Morrissey's Brexit comments, Marr said that his and his bandmate "probably don’t have much ideologically in common anymore."

Marr continued, “I always forget about that. That’s just stuff that I hear secondhand. If it is the case that he’s pro-Farage, then there would be a slight drawback in that I think, as anyone can imagine.”

This came shortly after Marr had written his memoir "Set The Boy Free," in which he shared that in 2008 the pair had thought about reuniting the band after a successful conversation about their past and future. However, Marr said, "Suddenly there was radio silence. Our communication ended, and things went back to how they were and how I expect they always will be."

Social media beef

A few years later, when rumors of the band reuniting popped up again, Marr responded cheekily to a tweet, “Nigel Farage on guitar."

In 2022, Morrissey wrote an open letter on his blog to Marr, asking him to "stop using my name as click-bait." 

"We haven't known each other for 35 years – which is many lifetimes ago," he said.

Morrissey said Marr "persistently, year after year, decade after decade" blamed him for everything from a tsunami to "the dribble on your grandma's chin."

Marr responded, "an 'open letter' hasn't really been a thing since 1953."

He said it was "all 'social media' now. Also, this fake news business . . . a bit 2021 yeah?"

Reunion?

According to an Aug. 29 post on Morrissey's blog, the Smiths were offered a deal to tour worldwide in the group next year. 

“Morrissey said yes to the offer, Marr ignored the offer,” the statement said. “Morrissey undertakes a largely sold-out tour of the USA in November."

After the Oasis reunion, one Smiths fan tweeted, "If Oasis can do it The Smiths can too (I'm delusional)." Not deigning to give a serious answer, Marr responded with a photo of Farage, a dig at Morrissey's vocal far-right support of the politician.