At the festival, the musical duo known as Bob Vylan led chants such as ‘Death, death to the IDF,’ while some attendees waved massive Palestinian flags.
At the Glastonbury Festival this past week, the musical duo known as Bob Vylan led the chants “Free, free, Palestine,” “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “Death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces],” while some attendees waved massive Palestinian flags. The BBC aired the show live but has since admitted that “with hindsight we should have pulled the stream during the performance,” and the performance will not be available on iPlayer. Organizers of Glastonbury have also expressed criticism, saying, “Their chants very much crossed a line and we are urgently reminding everyone involved in the production of the festival that there is no place at Glastonbury for antisemitism, hate speech or incitement to violence.”
Glastonbury also featured the Irish rap trio Kneecap, a group that made headlines recently because one of its members was charged with a terror offense for allegedly displaying a Hezbollah flag while saying “Up Hamas, up Hezbollah,” during a show. In light of the terror charge, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said it would not be “appropriate” for Kneecap to appear at Glastonbury. Yet the band did perform, and one of its members told the audience, “The prime minister of your country, not mine, said he didn’t want us to play, so f*** Keir Starmer.” Kneecap then led the crowd in chants of “f*** Keir Starmer” and “Free Palestine.”
Today, the Metropolitan Police said that it will not charge Kneecap for a band member’s comments, made in 2023, that “the only good Tory is a dead Tory” and “Kill your MP.” The police force stated that “given the time elapsed between the events in the video and the video being brought to police attention, any potential summary only offences were beyond the statutory time limit for prosecution.” However, the band might face charges soon: The Avon and Somerset Police announced today that, after reviewing footage from the Bob Vylan and Kneecap performances, it has appointed a senior detective to lead a criminal investigation. “This has been recorded as a public order incident at this time while our enquiries are at an early stage. The investigation will be evidence-led and will closely consider all appropriate legislation, including relating to hate crimes,” reads the police force’s announcement. It continues, “We have received a large amount of contact in relation to these events from people across the world and recognise the strength of public feeling. There is absolutely no place in society for hate.”
Considering that the United Kingdom recently fined a man who burned a Koran while saying “f*** Islam,” and threw a different man behind bars for over two years because he shouted “fing paedos” outside a hotel that housed migrants, it seems that these Glastonbury performers have crossed the legal line. If Jordan Parlour got 20 months in prison because he wrote on Facebook that “every man and their dog should be smashing f out Britannia Hotel,” a location that housed roughly 200 migrants, then surely “Death, death to the IDF” warrants some time behind bars.
Then again, this is the country where a local police force defended its hiring practices that discriminate against whites. This is also the country where authorities wanted to preserve the optics of multiculturalism and therefore avoided prosecuting the (largely South Asian) men who violently gang-raped young girls. This is also the country where a Pakistani drug dealer — who had accumulated 21 offenses since arriving in 1998 — dodged deportation because the judge concluded that the man could teach his son about Islam and Pakistani culture, which are “‘fundamental” to the boy’s “identity.” So perhaps this is Britain’s final exam: A lack of charges or punishment for the Glastonbury performers would be the ultimate confirmation of Britain’s two-tier policing and judiciary.