The Isle of Wight Festival kicks off a summer of music, but with Kneecap’s Glastonbury set making headlines, are festivals a place for politics?
Former N-Sync star Justin Timberlake – a man who’s crooned about his love of “dance, dance, dance” and has recently become a meme for his mic-centric moves on stage – is a headliner too. Meanwhile, Glastonbury Festival will see headline acts including Olivia Rodrigo, the 1975, and Charli XCX. But along with the headline stars and hot weather, politics has also found its way into the spotlight.
Youth culture and political expression have long been part of the festival experience, with Vietnam, nuclear disarmament, Brexit and the Russian invasion of Ukraine all attracting attention over the decades. This year, with geopolitics seemingly at a boiling point, the Israel-Hamas war has had far-reaching implications. As the Israel-Iran war follows in its wake, the conflict has prompted strong opinions on both sides.
Irish-language rap trio Kneecap‘s upcoming Glastonbury Festival set has become a flashpoint for robust debate, drawing protests from those calling for their set to be cancelled, as well as those championing their right to speak out. The root of the contention? Kneecap band member Liam O’Hanna, 27, was charged with a terror offence earlier this year, accused of displaying a flag in support of Hezbollah, a proscribed organisation in the UK, at a gig last year.
Hezbollah was proscribed in its entirety in 2019 because the government classed it as a terrorist organisation and said its attacks on Israel were “attempts to destabilise the fragile situation in the Middle East”. On Saturday, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he did not think Kneecap’s planned Glastonbury Festival performance was “appropriate”, and Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said she thought the BBC “should not be showing” the band’s performance at the festival next weekend.
