Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis has insisted “everyone is welcome” at the festival after politicians called for Kneecap to be removed from it’s line-up.
The Irish hip-hop trio are set to perform at this year’s edition of the Worthy Farm festival, with their set scheduled for the West Holts stage on Saturday (June 28) at 4pm.
Recently, organisers confirmed that the band will remain on the line-up despite increasing pressures from MPs to axe them, and following a police investigation into the band after they allegedly displayed a Hezbollah flag at a show last November and made controversial comments about members of parliament while on stage.
The incident in November recently led to member Mo Chara – real name Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh – being charged with a terror offence, for which he appeared in court earlier this week and was released on unconditional bail.
It follows a wave of controversy that has followed the band since their Coachella 2025 appearance in April, which saw their livestream cut after they started an anti-Thatcher chant. The group’s “Free Palestine” message was also confirmed to have been cut from the stream, and the statement reportedly left organisers “blindsided” due to its political nature.
It led to detractors, including Sharon Osbourne, to call for a “revocation” of the band’s work visa, after she claimed they “compromised” the festival’s “moral and spiritual integrity”. Politicians have also called for them to be removed from festivals after alleged comments from the band calling for the death of Conservative MPs.
When recently addressing the group’s upcoming Worthy Farm performance, Starmer said, when asked by The Sun if they should still play: “No, I don’t, and I think we need to come down really clearly on this. This is about the threats that shouldn’t be made, I won’t say too much because there’s a court case on, but I don’t think that’s appropriate.”
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch had made similar remarks regarding the trio’s upcoming Glastonbury set, posting on X/Twitter: “The BBC should not be showing Kneecap propaganda. One Kneecap band member is currently on bail, charged under the Terrorism Act,” she wrote. “As a publicly funded platform, the BBC should not be rewarding extremism.”
Having opened the Glastonbury gates this morning, Eavis has now addressed the controversy in a new interview with BBC Breakfast, where she was asked about her reaction to the Prime Minister’s comments.
‘Everyone is welcome here’
Glastonbury co-organiser Emily Eavis spoke to #BBCBreakfast after Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the band Kneecap shouldn’t perform at the Festival, after one of the band was charged with a terror offencehttps://t.co/u1fDIRbSgd pic.twitter.com/jefm3wmkro
— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) June 25, 2025
“We haven’t responded to that,” she said. “At the moment we’re just focusing on bringing the best festival to the people who want to come here. We’re incredibly lucky that so many people want to come to Glastonbury, we have millions of people who want to come.”
The interviewer followed up and said it was “quite a thing” for Starmer to enter the debate, to which she replied: “I know, it is, there have been a lot of really heated topics this year, but we remain a platform for many, many artists from all over the world and, you know, everyone is welcome here.”
As for their own response to Starmer, Kneecap wrote: “You know what’s “not appropriate” Keir?! Arming a fucking genocide… Fuck The Sun and solidarity with [Palestinian Action].”
Their post is referencing the pro-Palestinian activist group that recently targeted RAF Brize Norton and damaged two military aircraft. The government now plans to proscribe the group, which would effectively brand it as a terrorist organisation.
Throughout the controversy, the band have received support from fellow musicians, including Johnny Marr, who recently shared a statement in response to calls for their set to be pulled, which said: “I stand with my audience and fellow musicians who call for an immediate end to the atrocities and a free Palestine.”
Campaign group Love Music Hate Racism is among those expressing their support for Kneecap, saying via social media statement: “Anyone trying to silence them, or get them pulled from shows, is on the wrong side of history”.
Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten, also recently claimed that the terror charge brought against Mo Chara was “a witch hunt”, while Scottish novelist Irvine Welsh said the government attack on Kneecap was “a total embarrassment”.
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