Is Chanting "Death to the IDF" Legal?
Anyone who was worried that punk is dead only had to tune in to Bob Vylan's set at Glastonbury this weekend to find out that that was not the case.
A raucous set where the crowd joined in with chants of “Death, death to the IDF” prompted a poorly worded apology from festival organisers, left the BBC red-faced and led to calls for prosecution from the Shadow Home Secretary.
It is difficult to remember a time when attempted censorship of artistic free speech was quite so rigorous.
Parliament is still in session and the government is facing widespread rebellion from its own MPs over cuts to welfare, and yet ministers are spending their time telling media outlets which bands they think should and should not be allowed to perform at a music festival in Somerset.
Meanwhile, the BBC went to so much effort removing Kneecap from its Glastonbury coverage over impartiality concerns that it ended up broadcasting Bob Vylan’s set live in its entirety.
If the chants were for the death of the Russian military or the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, there is simply no chance that the uproar or condemnation would have been as loud or pronounced.
It is only because Israel is a supposed ally of the UK and because there are heightened concerns around antisemitism when discussing this issue, that the BBC and other broadcasters feel the need to tiptoe around something that is so obviously a genocide to anyone with eyes to see.
As Bob Vylan shared on a large screen behind them during the performance: “Free Palestine. United Nations have called it a genocide. The BBC calls it a conflict.”
Debates around freedom of expression are all very well, but should the performers be prosecuted as Chris Philp, the Shadow Home Secretary, has demanded?
Many on the right of British politics have compared the incident with the prosecution of Lucy Connolly, arguing that if she was sent to prison for inciting violence on social media, then how is that any different to Bob Vylan leading a chance of ‘Death, death to the IDF’?
I have discussed the details of the Connolly case previously in this newsletter and there are marked differences, most notably in the prospect of the calls for violence turning into action by their respective audiences.
The realistic likelihood of someone who was at Glastonbury over the weekend boarding a flight to Israel and beginning to murder members of the IDF is almost nil.
On the other hand, Connolly called on rioters who were already protesting outside hotels housing asylum seekers to set those buildings alight.
The IDF is a state military that is responsible for the deaths of civilians and journalists, meanwhile the foreign nationals that Connolly wanted to target were civilians themselves, doing nothing more than trying to escape hardship in their own country and find a better life in the UK.
None of this is to guarantee that the two members of Bob Vylan will not be prosecuted. After the decision to bring a case against Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh from Kneecap, all bets are off.
However, if they do end up in the dock for opposing oppression, famine and genocide, what could be more punk rock than that?
This week on the podcast, landowners took on wild campers in a battle over public access to the countryside.
Episode link: https://uklawweekly.com/2025-uksc-20/
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Marcus