UK could pay anti-Israel band Kneecap up to £90,000 in legal costs

The UK may hand over as much as £90,000 in taxpayer money to anti-Israel rap group Kneecap after refusing to contest the band’s legal case to reclaim a previously withdrawn subsidy, the JC understands.

The Northern Irish trio from west Belfast made headlines this weekend for projecting “F*** Israel” above the stage during their set at the Coachella music festival, encouraging the audience to participate in anti-Israel chants and accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians.

The statement projected on stage by Kneecap at Coachella also said "F*** Israel"[Missing Credit]

Members of the vehemently anti-Israel group have also previously posed for a photograph with a book by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, waved a flag of the proscribed terrorist organisation onstage at one of their performances in London in November last year and, on October 8, 2023 – as the scale of Hamas’s atrocities the previous day were only just being revealed – tweeted “Solidarity with the Palestinian struggle,” and a clenched fist emoji.

A photo of a member of Kneecap posing with a book about the Hezbollah terror chief has been seen 4.7 million times on X[Missing Credit]

Reacting to the footage from the group’s November concert shared the Community Security Trust (CST), in which a member of the group draped themself in a Hezbollah flag and shouted "up Hamas, up Hezbollah” to the crowd,. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has accused the group of “openly glorifying evil terror groups”.

Indeed, as business secretary, Badenoch had refused to grant Kneecap a music grant overseen by her department as a result of the group’s opposition to the United Kingdom and the anti-British lyrics in several of their songs.

The group launched legal action against the government’s initial decision, claiming that they had been discriminated against on the basis of their Irish nationalist views.

In November last year, a Belfast court ruled in their favour and the government awarded the controversial group £14,250 – equivalent to the grant for which they had applied.
However, Badenoch has appeared to blame the new Labour government for the court’s decision, claiming that, after it replaced her party in office, it had decided not to contest the case.

“In govt [sic] 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”, Badenoch claimed in a post on X.

She added: “Perhaps now Labour see Kneecap openly glorifying evil terror groups, they will apologise for rolling over. But I doubt it.”

And the JC now understands that the final legal costs are still being worked out with the band, which could see the government forced to pay out as much as £90,000.

Campaign group the TaxPayers’ Alliance also criticised the fact that Badenoch, as a government minister, was prevented from deciding who is entitled to government money.

Jonathan Eida, a researcher at the group, told the JC: "Across vast swathes of policy, politicians have delegated power to unelected bodies of bureaucrats, most notably the quangocracy which now dominates so much of the British state.

"This has led to sheer absurdities, such as the inability for a minister to block what is so obviously an appalling use of taxpayers money, namely the direct funding of a group which is aggressively hostile to the British state and its allies, such as Israel.”

He added: "Kemi Badenoch was right to challenge this decision, but she now needs to push Labour to make the necessary changes to ensure ministers aren't powerless in the future when it comes to decisions such as these."

Kneecap’s antics at Coachella were condemned by Tribe of Nova, a group made up of the producers and survivors from Nova Music festival, who said the messaging “deeply hurt many in our community” and was “an affront made even more painful in light of the massacre that took place at the Nova Music Festival on October 7”.

Meanwhile, music industry legend Sharon Osbourne questioned whether the group were an appropriate choice of band for the festival.

In a lengthy post on X, she said: “Their actions included projections of anti-Israel messages and hate speech, and this band openly support terrorist organisations. This behaviour raises concerns about the appropriateness of their participation in such a festival and further shows they are booked to play in the USA” and called for a revocation of their visa.

A spokesperson for the Department for Business and Trade said: “This Government’s priority is to get on delivering the change we promised and protect the taxpayer from further expense, which is why we did not continue to contest Kneecap’s challenge as we did not believe it to be in the public interest.

"The music industry is the heart and soul of our economy, and we are committed to helping acts continue to thrive and break into new markets, including through our MEGS programme – which has helped around 460 artists tour the globe.”