Glastonbury must drop Kneecap: Why are we giving a platform to agitators who call for MPs to be killed?
1 May 2025, 08:32 | Updated: 1 May 2025, 12:32
“The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.” “Up Hamas, up Hezbollah.” These are both statements shouted by the Irish Republican group, Kneecap, at their concerts.
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Despite the incitement of violence and murder and support for terrorist groups, which is a criminal offence, this group are due to perform at Glastonbury Festival.
I have written to the Glastonbury organisers asking them to remove Kneecap from the line-up.
The Glastonbury Festival should not be providing a platform or legitimacy to a group which has incited the murder of democratically elected MPs, especially when MPs have been murdered in the recent past.
If the organisers of the festival do not remove Kneecap from the line-up, they will be condoning incitement to violence and murder.
What did the Government have to say about this? Yvette Cooper said it is a matter for the organisers. This is a weak response. Yvette Cooper must join with me in calling for Kneecap to be removed from the Glastonbury line-up.
The Home Secretary’s comments are hardly surprising as the Labour Government has already capitulated to this band once before.
In government, the Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, blocked Kneecap getting taxpayer funding. Labour didn’t contest the legal case the band brought, so Kneecap walked away with £14,250 of our money.
The Labour Government said it was not in the public interest to challenge this case. Why on earth would the Labour Government think that trying to stop this group receiving taxpayers’ money would not be in the public interest?
Will Labour apologise for rolling over now that they can see Kneecap openly glorifying evil terror groups, and calling for the murder of MPs? I very much doubt it.
We can add this failure by the Labour Government to a long list of cowardly decisions. It is the same old story – Labour will surrender your money, to the unions, to Mauritius to pay for the surrender of the Chagos Islands and to this band, then hound farmers, businesses and pensioners to pay for it.
Labour will always capitulate rather than defend our interests.
Chris Philp MP is the Shadow Home Secretary
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The band said: "Kneecap’s message has always been – and remains – one of love, inclusion, and hope. This is why our music resonates across generations, countries, classes and cultures and has brought hundreds of thousands of people to our gigs. No smear campaign will change that."
