Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has condemned the Irish rap group Kneecap for “glorifying evil terror groups” after a video of one of its members shouting “Up Hamas, up Hezbollah” from a November 2024 concert in London appeared online.
Badenoch shared the video, put online by the Community Security Trust’s Danny Morris, on her own social media platform and slammed Kneecap writing:”Perhaps now Labour see Kneecap openly glorifying evil terror groups, they will apologise for rolling over. But I doubt it.”
A CST spokeswoman later said it was “utterly disgraceful” that Hezbollah and Hamas – both considered terrorist organisations by the UK and other nations – were being “lauded from a London stage” with the crowd “encouraged to show their support.”
“We fully expect the police to investigate this thoroughly and take appropriate action,” they added.
In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said it had been made aware of the video.
“It has been referred to the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit for assessment and to determine whether any further police investigation may be required,” it said.
As Business Secretary Badenoch had backed a legal challenge after Kneecap received nearly £15,000 in the Music Export Growth Scheme, which aims to promote British bands internationally and had previously been signed off by the BPI.
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This was stopped, but the band won a legal challenge when ruled the British government discriminated against the group by stopping this funding.
Badeoch posted on X:”In govt I blocked Kneecap getting taxpayer funding. Labour didn’t contest the legal case the band brought and they walked away with £14,250 of OUR money.”
In a statement on November 29th, following the legal victory, Kneecap said: “For us, this action was never about £14,250; it could have been 50 pence. The motivation was equality. This was an attack on artistic culture, an attack on the Good Friday Agreement itself, and an attack on Kneecap and our way of expressing ourselves.”
The Department for Business and Trade said the government’s “priority is to get on delivering the change we promised and protect the taxpayer from further expense”.
A spokesperson said this was “why we did not continue to contest Kneecap’s challenge as we did not believe it to be in the public interest”.
Kneecap has repeatedly attempted to gain publicity with statements of support for the Palestinians.
The group was formed in 2017 by three friends who go by the stage names of Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí.
In the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas massacre, the group posted an apparently supportive message the following day.
Last weekend, Kneecap performed at Coachella, an annual music festival in California, where they ended their set with pro-Palestinian messages.
The TV personality and America’s Got Talent judge Sharon Osborne has now called for a west Belfast rap group’s US work visas to be revoked.
At the end of their set at the second weekend of Coachella, which was not streamed on the festival’s official YouTube page, Kneecap projected three screens of text.
The first message said: “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people,” followed by: “It is being enabled by the US government who arm and fund Israel despite their war crimes,” and a final screen added: “[Expletive] Israel. Free Palestine.”
During the performance, band member Mo Chara said: “The Irish not so long ago were persecuted at the hands of the Brits, but we were never bombed from the… skies with nowhere to go.
“The Palestinians have nowhere to go.”
The band also led the audience in chants of: “Free, free Palestine”.
