Badenoch lashes out at Labour for settling Kneecap discrimination case

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has defended a controversial decision she took as a minister to withdraw a government arts grant from the Belfast band Kneecap after the group won a discrimination case against the UK government on Friday (29 November).

Kneecap’s case, which claimed Badenoch’s actions when she was Business and Trade Minister were “unlawful and procedurally unfair”, was concluded after the new Labour government decided it would not continue to contest it, claiming it is “not in the public interest”.

Badenoch has criticised Labour for settling, calling it “yet another cowardly decision after giving away the Chagos Islands”, adding, “Labour would rather waste your money than stand up to a group of Irish republicans who go to court because the UK government won’t hand them cash”.

Freedom of expression

The group has been awarded £14,250 – the same amount they were granted in December 2023 by British Phonographic Industry (BPI) as part of the taxpayer-funded Music Export Growth Scheme (MEGS) to put toward a North American tour.

After revoking the grant, a spokesperson for the then-UK Business Secretary said it was “hardly surprising” she had intervened, given that the group was “opposed to the United Kingdom”.  

Kneecap previously claimed the interference was due to an objection over a poster for their 2019 Farewell to the Union tour featuring cartoons of Boris Johnson and Arlene Foster tied to a rocket.

The group, known for politically charged lyrics and using controversial Troubles-related imagery, urged their fans to “fight censorship” following the revocation.

In response to the settlement on 29 November, Badeonch’s spokesperson said: “This case is not about whether a band promotes violence or hates the UK, as Kneecap clearly do; this is about whether government ministers have the ability to stop taxpayers’ money subsidising people who neither need nor deserve it.”

After the court hearing, band member DJ Próvaí said: “For us, this action was never about £14,250; it could have been 50p.”

“This was an attack on artistic culture, an attack on the Good Friday Agreement itself and an attack on Kneecap and our way of expressing ourselves.”

‘Social change through youth, art and culture’

Kneecap has said they plan to donate the money to two Belfast charities who work with Protestant and Catholic communities in Northern Ireland.

Sarah Jane Waite, director of RCity Belfast, told the BBC the charity was grateful for the “generosity and support from Kneecap”, with the money going to a number of local and international projects.

Feargal Mac Ionnrachtaigh, executive director of Glór Na Móna, told BBC Radio Ulster’s Evening Extra programme the money would be put to “good use”, including constructing a new building.

“The key for us is… 25 years after the Good Friday Agreement, we have built a sector through the medium of Irish, but we’re still finding ourselves in mobile huts and substandard accommodation.”

“This donation goes to the heart of that.

“The idea of creating social change through youth, through art, through culture is what Kneecap are ultimately about and what both of these youth projects are ultimately about.”