If you think Kneecap’s apology was gaslighting, wait until you learn what the UK Government continues to spend your taxes on

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/comment/if-you-think-kneecaps-apology-was-gaslighting-wait-until-you-learn-what-the-uk-government-continues-to-spend-your-taxes-on/a912881333.html

• Kneecap apologised for saying hurtful words while Westminster continues to send aid to Israel — but it’s easier to judge a band by their balaclava than judge governments for their complicity in war crimes

Stephanie Finnegan

It is no coincidence that British politicians are now threatening Kneecap’s income — it’s censorship.

Kneecap have faced more backlash in the fortnight since they broadcast “f**k Israel” on a US stage than they have in the 18 months since their London gig during which a band member allegedly told the crowd to “kill your local MP”.

In the same year as that controversial 10-second ‘speech’ in the 1,500-capacity Electric Ballroom, the British Government sent Israel £42m in military aid. Since then, more than 51,000 Palestinians, including women and children, have been killed.

The group’s apology wasn’t adequate enough for politicians. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who last year lost a legal battle with the rap group when the High Court in Belfast overturned her decision to block a £14,250 Government arts grant to the trio while she was business secretary, said the band “should be prosecuted” for “glorifying terrorism" and that “people are in prison for sending tweets that don’t go that far”.

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he did not think “individuals expressing those views should be receiving government funding”.

Nor was the apology enough for some family members of British MPs murdered in the past decade.

Now, Kneecap have had four gigs in England and Germany axed. The DUP has requested to urgently meet with the promoters of Belfast Vital and has asked for a special meeting of Belfast City Council due to “serious concerns” about Kneecap supporting Dublin post-punk band Fontaines DC at Boucher Road Playing Fields this August.

When the Belfast Telegraph contacted all 60 members of the council to ask if they believed the gig should go ahead, not one responded with a statement of their own, while several wrote back to ask that their party press office be contacted. As Kneecap’s manager Daniel Lambert told RTE News, a band “are being held to a higher moral account than politicians who are ignoring international law”.

I have a lot of respect for Jo Cox’s family. I was in my second week working as a trainee reporter for a national news agency covering the Yorkshire region when Ms Cox was stabbed by white supremacist Thomas Mair on her way to a constituency surgery in Birstall, near Leeds, a week before the Brexit referendum. My then-editor sent me to do what journalists call ‘a death knock’ on the couple’s front door.

I was technically still doing my master’s degree in journalism, funded by a bursary for being from west Belfast and a working-class background, and I was still wrapping my head around Brexit. Being sent to interview the family of a Remainer MP who was clinging to life in hospital about their shock and grief was really throwing me in at the deep end.

I’ll admit I was quietly relieved when I found out that Brendan was still in London with the couple’s children. I moved on to her parents’ house where I briefly spoke to her dad Gordon Leadbeater, and then her sister’s Kim Leadbeater’s house. They both politely told me that they didn’t want to speak to the press yet.

My first death knocks stuck with me, especially as I went on to face my own death threats from the far-right. I often think about Jo Cox’s words in her maiden speech in the House of Commons where she’d said: “We are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.”

This sentiment has been echoed by Kneecap members over the years, including when Mo Chara said: “I’ve more in common with f**kin’ Joe Bloggs from the Shankill Road who’s 23 than Sebastian Cockworth from Dublin even though we’ve got the same passport. I’ve got more in common with a working-class unionist than an upper-class Irish [person].”

I think about those words more often these days.

It’s easy to judge a band by their balaclava.

When Kneecap unveiled a mural depicting a burning PSNI Land Rover in 2022, they laughed off claims of sectarianism, adding: “Some people are more worried about a piece of art than the effigies of real politicians hanging off bonfires. We don’t want to be fighting or advocating violence. We want people to be thinking.”

When they headlined a sold-out SSE Arena last December, they invited Shankill rapper Young Spencer to support them.

When they won their legal battle against Badenoch last year, they donated half the money to a youth organisation on the Shankill Road.

And when their self-titled semi-autobiographical film won one of the six Baftas it was nominated for earlier this year, some unionists celebrated it as a failure. I overheard one person describe the band as “IRA-loving c***s” before admitting that they hadn’t listened to their music or watched the movie, which is mostly about promoting the Irish language… and falling in love with a Protestant.

It is in fact Starmer’s Labour constituency of Holborn and St Pancras where the Electric Ballroom was told: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.”

I agree that “kill your local MP” can only be interpreted at face value, but I suspect they hadn’t a clue where they were or who they were referring to when this was said.

If anyone should be offended, it’s actually Starmer. Eighteen months on from the original comment, he’s Prime Minister and shaking hands with Trump as they discuss global affairs.

My colleague Malachi O’Doherty argued that it’s unclear whether Kneecap want to be taken seriously. But their message is clear to me: f**k Israel, free Palestine. Let’s remember what we have in common, apply common sense and not let British MPs gaslight us into believing we should prosecute artists for speaking out against genocide.

Art is supposed to make you feel something. Music has long been used to make political statements — and the best rap is provocative.

This isn’t Kneecap’s first controversy and it won’t be their last. My colleague Mark Bain argued that Kneecap could learn from Green Day by including their political messages in their lyrics instead.

I agree — that way, we can look forward to finding out what rhymes with “free Palestine”.