Ringo Star has revealed that he voted for Britain to leave the EU in June’s referendum.

The former Beatle said he made the decision because the EU was a “shambles”.

“I voted for Brexit, because I thought the European Union was a great idea, but I didn’t see it going anywhere lately,” he told Bloomberg Businessweek. “It’s in shambles, and we’re all stuck with people who want to make arrangements for their own country and don’t think for the other countries. Britain should be out and get back on its own feet.”


“And now Scotland wants to leave and Wales wants to leave,” he continued. “Then it will be Devon. God knows where it will end.”

Fellow former Beatle Paul McCartney admitted last month that he didn’t vote because he was touring at the time. However, McCartney said he was leaning towards voting remain, in an interview with the Washington Post: “I think I would have come down on the remain side because people like the Governor of the Bank of England, a lot of financial experts, were saying that.”

Press

Starr also talked about the Beatle’s late arrival to streaming services. The British band’s back catalogue only became widely available to stream last year.

“We’re just moving with the times,” explained Starr. “When we started with vinyl, and then CDs came out, that was good for us financially, because it wasn’t in the contract. We had to go to CDs in the end. We were pretty late there. We were late to iTunes, too, but went there so you could buy the tracks. Streaming is huge now, so we’re moving on. Who knows what’s going to be next? What’s Kanye West going to think of?”

But Starr admitted that he doesn’t stream music himself, preferring to listen to the radio instead.

“Though the Beatles are streaming now and have had a billion streams, I haven’t actually done it myself. If I’m in the car, I usually listen to the radio, 88.5 Northridge [KCSN-FM, operated by California State University at Northridge]. I just love that channel, because it’s such a mixed bag,” he said.

