Irish rap trio Kneecap took aim at UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer during a defiant performance Saturday at Britain’s Glastonbury festival, which also saw Britpop legends Pulp wow fans with a surprise show.
Kneecap has made headlines in recent months with their pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel stance.
One of their members has been charged with a “terror” offence for allegedly supporting Hezbollah, leading Starmer and other politicians to call for them to be dropped from the line up.
In front of thousands of fans, many waving Palestinian flags, Kneecap led the crowd in chanting abuse about Starmer.
“Glastonbury, I’m a free man”, said member Liam O’Hanna, who appeared in court earlier this month accused of having displayed a Hezbollah flag while saying “Up Hamas, Up Hezbollah” after a video resurfaced of a London concert last year.
The Iran-backed Lebanese force Hezbollah and the Palestinian militant group Hamas are banned in the UK, and it is an offence to express support for them.
O’Hanna, known by his stage name Mo Chara, has denied the charge.
“This situation can be quite stressful but it’s minimal compared to what the Palestinian people are (facing),” said O’Hanna, wearing his trademark keffiyah.
O’Hanna also gave “a shout out” to Palestine Action Group, which interior minister Yvette Cooper announced last week would become a banned group under the Terrorism Act of 2000.
Fellow band member DJ Provai wore a t-shirt dedicated to the campaign group, whose prohibition comes after its activists broke into a British Royal Air Force base and vandalised two planes.
– ‘Playing characters’ –
Before Kneecap took to the stage, rap punk duo Bob Vylan led the crowd in chants of “Death, death to the IDF”, a reference to the Israeli Defence Forces.
Israel’s embassy to the UK said it was “deeply disturbed by the inflammatory and hateful rhetoric” in a post on X following the event.
“It raises serious concerns about the normalisation of extremist language and the glorification of violence,” it said, calling for festival organisers, artists and UK officials to denounce the remark.
Local police said they were assessing videos of comments made by both groups to decide whether any offences may have been committed, UK media reported.
Formed in 2017, Kneecap is no stranger to controversy. To their fans they are daring provocateurs who stand up to the establishment; to their detractors they are dangerous extremists.
Their Irish and English lyrics are filled with references to drugs, they repeatedly clashed with the UK’s previous Conservative government and have vocally opposed British rule in Northern Ireland.
The group apologised this year after a 2023 video emerged appearing to show one singer calling for the death of British Conservative MPs.
Two MPs have been murdered in Britain in the past nine years and many of them worry about their safety.
But Kneecap deny the terrorism charge and say the video featuring the Hezbollah flag has been taken out of context.
Asked whether he regretted waving it, and other comments caught on camera, Chara told the Guardian in an interview published Friday: “Why should I regret it? It was a joke — we’re playing characters.”
Chris Jeffries, a 32-year-old analyst at a bank, told AFP that Kneecap’s performance at Glastonbury made him proud to be a fan.
“They’re one of the only bands here that are actually preaching about Palestine,” said Jeffries, wearing an Irish tricolour balaclava.
– Glastonbury rejects criticism –
Since O’Hanna was charged, the group has been pulled from a slew of summer gigs, including a Scottish festival appearance and various performances in Germany.
But Glastonbury organisers defied Starmer who had said it was not “appropriate” for Kneecap to perform at Glastonbury, one of the country’s biggest and most famous music festivals.
“People that don’t like the politics of the event can go somewhere else,” Michael Eavis, co-founder of the festival said in an article published in a free newspaper for festival-goers.
Public broadcaster the BBC faced pressure not to air the concert.
In a statement Saturday, a spokesperson for the broadcaster said the performance would not be shown live but would likely be available on-demand afterwards.
Pulp, led by Jarvis Cocker, had fans bouncing to ’90s anthem “Common People” after being listed on the lineup as “Patchwork”.
“Sorry to the people who were expecting Patchwork,” the frontman joked.
Headline acts at the festival which finishes Sunday include Neil Young and Olivia Rodrigo, with other highlights including Charli XCX and Rod Stewart.
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© Agence France-Presse
