UK politicians have called for rap trio Kneecap to be removed from 2025 festival line-ups.
The calls come after it was revealed that counter-terror police were assessing footage from a performance that appears to show one band member shouting “Up Hamas, up Hezbollah” as well as a video of another incident with the alleged line “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP”.
Hezbollah and Hamas are both proscribed terror organisations in the UK, and it is an offence to invite support for such a group.
The video calling for the deaths of Conservative Members of Parliament (MPs) is thought to be from a show in November 2023 while the ‘Up Hamas, up Hezbollah’ incident is believed to be from a concert in November 2024.
The group has since apologised to the families of British MPs Jo Cox and Sir David Amess, who were murdered in 2016 and 2021.
Kneecap hails from West Belfast in Northern Ireland and are due to play at Glastonbury in Somerset and Glasgow’s TRNSMT, as well as Wide Awake Festival and 2000 Trees this summer.
However, after the footage was unveiled, Scottish First Minister John Swinney backed calls for Kneecap to be dropped from the TRNSMT line-up.
The music festival is scheduled for July 11-13 on Glasgow Green.
Scottish Conservatives also called for organisers DF Concerts to axe the group, while Scottish Conservative MSP Stephen Kerr told BBC News that the alleged comments had “crossed a line”.
Yesterday (Monday) Labour MP for Hemel Hempstead David Taylor also shared a letter addressed to Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis requesting the festival to remove Kneecap from the bill.
Glastonbury is held at Worthy Farm and is scheduled from June 25-29.