Last month the 46th edition of the ever-prestigious BRIT Awards took place in Manchester. This was the first time in the ceremony’s history that it had been held outside of London. What a win for the North. Upon accepting the award for International Group of the Year, Geese drummer Max Bassin declared in his acceptance speech “I just wanna say, Free Palestine, fuck ICE, let’s go Geese”. The speech received thunderous applause from the audience. However, rather interestingly, this sentence from Bassin’s speech was censored in the ITV broadcast of the BRIT Awards. This obviously begs the question – why was this censored? Is opposing genocide now seen as some sort of controversial political statement? Is free speech only allowed when it aligns with the British media’s agenda? Here’s a thought – how about we just call declaring support for Palestine what it is – being on the right side of history.
I have always found the ‘keep politics out of music’ argument somewhat bewildering. By nature, music is inherently political. More than anything, music allows us to express our life views through art. Some of the best and most famous songs of all time were written to convey political messages. Sam Cooke wrote ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ about the forthgoing civil rights movement after being turned away from a ‘whites-only’ motel in Louisiana. John Lennon advocated for social change in The Beatles’ ‘Revolution’. N.W.A documented their experiences with police brutality and racial profiling in ‘Fuck that Police’. If we were to exclude politics from music, we would have no music. Besides, is raising awareness to issues such as racism, social inequality and genocide even a political statement? Or is it simply just being a compassionate and normal human being?
For this article, I feel like we should focus on two of the most outspoken artists of Palestinian support in the music industry – the Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap and the English punk-rap duo Bob Vylan. Let’s start with Kneecap. I have only really started to listen to Kneecap over the last couple of months, yet I have had immense respect for them over the last couple of years for how they have conducted themselves regarding their support of Palestine. Kneecap first found themselves at the centre of political scrutiny in November of 2024, when it was alleged that band member Mo Chara paraded a Hezbollah flag on stage at their show at London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town. In the United Kingdom, Hezbollah is considered a terrorist organisation and expressing support for Hezbollah is deemed a criminal offence. I am yet to educate myself on Hezbollah but, according to Wikipedia, Hezbollah are a ‘Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and banned paramilitary group’ who were founded in 1982 by Lebanese clerics in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. In May 2025, Chara was charged under the Terrorism Act of 2006 as a result of his alleged display of the Hezbollah flag. He appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on the 18th June 2025 and was granted unconditional bail.
During Kneecap’s set at Coachella Festival in April of 2025, the band displayed the message “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. It is being enabled by the US. Fuck Israel / Free Palestine” on screen. This did not sit well within the American media. Sharon Osbourne and the pro-Israel organisation ‘Creative Community for Peace’ (how ironic is that name) called for the band’s visas to be revoked as a result of their ‘hate speech’. Kneecap responded to the media outrage with “statements aren’t aggressive, murdering 20,000 children is though”. Very fair point. Kneecap also reiterated that their condemnation of Israel was in no way an attack against Jewish people, stating “we know there are massive numbers of Jewish people outraged by this genocide just as we are”. Following their Coachella performance, the UK-based ‘Campaign Against Antisemitism’ reported Kneecap to UK counter-terrorism police. As a result of Kneecap being reported to UK counter-terrorism police, over forty artists, including the likes of Fontaines D.C., Pulp and Paul Weller, signed an open later to declare that they defended Kneecap’s freedom of expression.
All of above came to a head on the 28th June 2025 when Kneecap, alongside the newly bailed Chara, performed a set at Glastonbury Festival. In the days leading up to Kneecap’s set, prime minister Keir Starmer described their upcoming set as ‘not appropriate’. Kneecap responded to Starmer’s comments with “you know what’s ‘not appropriate’ Keir? Arming a fucking genocide”. This was in reference to Britain’s continued funding of Israeli arms that directly facilitates their genocide of Palestinians. Kneecap’s set was one of the festival’s most highly anticipated sets of the weekend and drew significant media attention the days prior. Unsurprisingly, the performance drew a full-capacity crowd. Throughout the performance, Kneecap lead chants of ‘free Mo Chara’ and ‘fuck Keir Starmer’.
Perhaps the most notable aspect of Kneecap’s set is that, at the last minute, the BBC chose not to livestream Kneecap’s performance as a part of their coverage of Glastonbury Festival 2025. Instead, the BBC opted to release the set later that evening on BBC iPlayer following ‘editorial review’. For an organisation that is pro-Israel it is hardly to anyone’s surprise that they made this decision, but I am beginning to notice a pattern here. The BBC chose not to broadcast Kneecap’s set live and instead only broadcast the set once all the pro-Palestine stuff could be edited out. ITV censored Bassin’s declaration of ‘Free Palestine’ at The Brit Awards last month. Freedom of expression is perfectly acceptable in this country, just not when it involves Palestine. Food for thought.
The same weekend that the BBC chose not to livestream Kneecap’s performance at Glastonbury, they royally shot themselves in the foot. They were too pre-occupied cowering around Kneecap’s performance that they forgot that Bob Vylan, another hugely outspoken defender of Palestine, was also scheduled to perform at the festival. The BBC livestreamed the entirety of Bob Vylan’s set on BBC iPlayer. Poetry really. They completely censored one artist because of their views on Palestine and then completely forgot about another. During the set, vocalist of Bob Vylan, Bobby Vylan, lead the crowd to chants of ‘Free Palestine’ and, more controversially, ‘death, death to the IDF’. The IDF are the Israel Defence Forces who are responsible for the genocide of Palestinians. As well as this, Bob Vylan also performed in front of a screen that read “Free Palestine: United Nations have called it a genocide. The BBC calls it a ‘conflict’”.
As did Kneecap, Bob Vylan felt the repercussions for voicing their support of Palestine. Bob Vylan saw their visas revoked for their forthcoming tour of the United States, leading to the cancellation of all shows over there. For a while there was also whispers in the media that Bob Vylan could face some sort of criminal charges for their behaviour at Glastonbury Festival, most notably as a result of their ‘death, death to the IDF’ chant, but in December of 2025 Avon and Somerset Police announced that the case did not “meet the criminal threshold”. Kudos to Avon and Somerset Police.
Upon writing this article, I have been surprised by the amount of names in the music industry who have declared their support for Palestine over the years. We would be here for a while if I was to name all of them in this article, so I must encourage you to do a quick Google search if you are interested.
Ultimately, the British media’s continued censorship of Palestine stems from a fear of criticising Israel. After all, Britain created Israel and we now have the blood of tens of thousands of Palestinians on our hands. An acknowledgement of the genocide would be an admission of complicity.
I can’t comprehend how anyone can witness what’s happening in Palestine and other atrocities around the world and not feel nauseated. Religion and politics aside, it comes down to who you are as a human being. History has a right side and a wrong one – it’s up to you which side you choose to be on.
“It is really simple, there’s no grey area – are you for genocide or are you against it”? – Paul Weller
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