Kneecap Respond After Keir Starmer Claims Their Glastonbury Set Is 'Not Appropriate'
Kneecap have spoken out after British prime minister Sir Keir Starmer supported calls for them to be pulled from this year’s Glastonbury line-up.
The Belfast trio have been constantly in the headlines over the last few months ever since their Coachella set in April, where they voiced their support for Palestine, projecting messages like “fuck Israel, free Palestine” onto the screens behind them, and leading the crowd in a chant of “free Palestine”.
Just days later, it was first reported that counter-terrorism officers were assessing a resurfaced video from five months earlier, during which the group reportedly declared “up Hamas, up Hezbollah” at a gig in London.
It was later confirmed that band member Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh – better known to Kneecap fans under his stage name Mo Chara – had been charged with a terror offence, for which he made his first appearance in court last week.
Over the weekend, Starmer was asked by The Sun if he thought it was appropriate that Kneecap, of whom the UK government has previously been critical, would still be performing at Glastonbury this coming weekend.
“No I don’t,” he responded. “I think we need to come down really clearly on this. I won’t say too much, because there’s a court case on, but I don’t think that’s appropriate.”
“You know what’s ‘not appropriate’ Keir?!” the band wrote back on Instagram. “Arming a fucking genocide…”
They signed off their message “fuck The Sun”, while sharing solidarity with the protest group Palestine Action, who it was reported over the weekend were to be proscribed by the home secretary, effectively rendering them a terrorist organisation, after they broke into an RAF base and damaged two military aircraft in an act of protest.
Responding to Ó hAnnaidh being charged with a terror offence, Kneecap said in a group statement last month: “We deny this ‘offence’ and will vehemently defend ourselves. This is political policing. This is a carnival of distraction. We are not the story. Genocide is.
“As they profit from genocide, they use an ‘anti-terror law’ against us for displaying a flag thrown on stage. A charge not serious enough to even warrant their ‘crown court’, instead a court that doesn’t have a jury.
“What’s the objective? To restrict our ability to travel. To prevent us speaking to young people across the world. To silence voices of compassion. To prosecute artists who dare speak out.
“Instead of defending innocent people, or the principles of international law they claim to uphold, the powerful in Britain have abetted slaughter and famine in Gaza, just as they did in Ireland for centuries. Then, like now, they claim justification.”
They concluded: “We stand proudly with the people. You stand complicit with the war criminals. We are on the right side of history. You are not. We will fight you in your court. We will win. Free Palestine.”
Prior to that, the band said they had been made the subject of a smear campaign, while insisting: “Let us be unequivocal. We do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah. We condemn all attacks on civilians, always. It is never okay.”
Kneecap will perform on Glastonbury’s West Holt stage on Saturday 28 June.