Gaza Genocide Emergency Committee (GGEC) wish to express our strong disapproval over the decision by organisers of the coming TRNSMT music festival in Glasgow to cancel Irish rap band Kneecap’s appearance.
TRNSMT say they are acting on ‘police concerns’ over ‘public safety’, should Kneecap be allowed to appear.
This is a spurious claim and a cowardly evasion by TRNSMT in seeking excuses to remove the band and avoid responsibility for their own decision.
First Minister John Swinney has been a major party to this deception in leading the call for Kneecap’s cancellation.
It is clear that, contrary to his own anguished ‘concerns’ over past remarks by band members – which they have formally apologised for – their words have been wilfully taken out of context and weaponised in a calculated campaign to smear and silence them.
The real and obvious reason for Kneecap’s ousting is their strong, moral and admirable support for Palestine, and consistent condemnation of Israel’s genocide.
Rather than emoting over Kneecap’s loose words, Swinney should be using the actual word ‘genocide’, and his considerable position to condemn Israel’s prosecution of it, just like Kneecap.
It might also help if Swinney issued categorical words instructing Scottish Enterprise to stop funding the arms companies here in Scotland that are supplying weaponry to Israel’s genocide.
It’s remarkable to think that while Israel’s genocide is being denounced by every major UN organisation, human rights body, and genocide scholar in the world, such an action could be taken against a group of artists actually standing up against that genocide.
It seems that Israel can openly commit genocide and still participate in the Olympics, international football events and Eurovision, while a band calling out its genocide is refused a token stage at Glasgow Green.
It is also notable that in its recently adopted motion on Palestine, Glasgow City Council itself refused to approve Kneecap’s removal from the TRNSMT festival. [1]
All of which points to the leading efforts and influence of Swinney and the Scottish Government in pushing for this ban.
Police Scotland must also account for their inexplicable objections to the band performing. What are the supposed threats here to public safety and reasons for the force’s ‘inability’ to police such an event?
However, none of this can excuse or mitigate TRNSMT’s own ultimate decision in cancelling the band.
As 2 million people in Gaza continue to face genocidal bombing, displacement, starvation and extermination, TRNSMT have chosen to cower before the Israeli lobby’s concocted claims and intimidations.
Against the express support of a long list of performing artists – including Massive Attack, Pulp, Primal Scream, Idles, Paul Weller, Yard Act, Annie Mac, Fontaines D.C. (also due to play TRNSMT), Dexys, Thurston Moore, Enter Shikari, Bicep and Brian Eno – and PACBI calls for the cultural boycotting of Israel, the TRNSMT organisation, in cancelling Kneecap, have chosen normalisation of Israel’s war crimes over ethical support for artistic expression and solidarity with the Palestinian people. [2]
In denying this band a platform to amplify their humanitarian concerns over a genocide happening in real time, TRNSMT have now become a complicit party to that genocide.
Accordingly, we believe that it is incumbent on all moral-minded people to boycott the TRNSMT event, and for attendees to cancel their TRNSMT tickets.
It is also uplifting to see that an alternative show by Kneecap at the city’s O2 Academy, arranged by the band in quick response to the ban, has immediately sold out.
We are confident that attempts to suppress the worthy music and voices of Kneecap will only encourage greater support for the band and the vital messages on Palestine they fearlessly seek to convey.
GGEC
———
[1] Glasgow Council motion, 15 May 2025. https://onlineservices.glasgow.gov.uk/councillorsandcommittees/viewSelectedPack.asp?c=P6J5FQZLDNT1T181