During the Troubles, some 2,500 people were victims of kneecappings – punishment shootings, dished out by paramilitaries, for perceived crimes ranging from fraternising with British soldiers to drug dealing and rape. The term is something of a misnomer. The torture entails a low-velocity gunshot to the knee from a handgun. That isn’t guaranteed to destroy one’s kneecaps but could cause tissue or nerve damage and joint fractures. At least 13 victims had to have their limbs amputated; one in five was once estimated to limp for the rest of their lives.
Until recently, a mention of kneecapping was a reminder of the terror that plagued Northern Ireland within living memory. Yet this week, thousands will descend upon Glastonbury, at £373.50 a ticket, for a chance to see a band named after the practice – a group who have won global fame, chart success, government funding and police attention by draping themselves in the violence of Ulster’s recent history.
For the unfamiliar, Kneecap are a Belfast hip-hop trio. Rapping in English and Irish, their output mixes odes to drug use with Irish republicanism. One of the trio – a 35-year-old ex-teacher – writes ‘Brits Out’ on his behind and performs in a tricolour balaclava. The band has commissioned a mural depicting a police Land Rover burning from a petrol bomb, above the slogan ‘RUC not welcome’ in Gaelic. Of late, the self-described ‘anti-Zionists’ have been especially vocal about the Middle East, performing in California with ‘Fuck Israel/Free Palestine’ projected behind them.
But the band’s outspokenness has caught up with them. Last week, one member appeared in court for allegedly displaying a flag supporting Hezbollah – a proscribed terrorist organisation – and chanting ‘up Hamas, up Hezbollah’ during a recent performance. A resurfaced video from 2023 featured one of the trio exclaiming that ‘The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP!’ – seven years on from the murder of Jo Cox and two from that of Sir David Amess.
Kneecap rushed out a statement ‘clarifying’ their positions. ‘Let us be unequivocal,’ the trio announced. ‘We do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah.’ They would never ‘seek to incite violence against any MP or individual’. Footage was being ‘exploited and weaponised’ by their opponents. Up to a point, Lord Copper. If the trio don’t want to be accused of supporting terrorism or wanting politicians dead, they should be rather more careful about their language.
None of this has stalled Kneecap’s momentum. Their Glastonbury gig follows a Bafta-winning biopic last year. Yet beyond the nodding dogs of the music press, there will be many who find their work disgraceful, denials unconvincing and popularity disturbing. As business secretary, Kemi Badenoch blocked a £14,250 grant to the band, later overturned by the courts. Taxpayers’ money, she argued, should not be given ‘to people who oppose the United Kingdom itself’. She has condemned our national broadcaster for planning to show the group. ‘As a publicly funded platform,’ she warned, ‘the BBC should not be rewarding extremism.’
Every attempt to block
the band has so far
won them greater fame
Kneecap came of age in a post-Troubles Northern Ireland. Whether they like it or not, the trio were raised in relative peace in the comfort and protection of the British state. They peddle the aesthetics of terror for the entertainment of the ignorant and nihilistic. Had they lived a little earlier, there is every chance the trio would have been kneecapped themselves, for crimes against good taste.
Yet as objectionable as Kneecap are, trying to shut them up is wrong. Doing so provides them with what they want – the oxygen of publicity and the aura of danger. Just as the BBC’s desperate efforts to keep the Sex Pistols off the radio during the Silver Jubilee only drove more people to buy their records, every attempt to block Kneecap has so far won them greater fame. If the establishment is so against them, punters might think, they must be doing something right.
Letting Kneecap play is a sign of confidence. Their calls to ‘Get Your Brits Out’ are no more likely to unite Ireland than Johnny Rotten’s warbling about a fascist regime was to topple the monarchy. For ageing middle-class Corbynistas with too much time and money on their hands, trekking through crowded Somerset fields to see the band play is a form of radical chic – as essential a fashion statement as draping a keffiyeh around their necks. Never mind that the Royal Ulster Constabulary was disbanded two decades ago.
Too often, self-declared free speech defenders only stand up for those they perceive as being on their side. Even John Milton, in Areopagitica, was unwilling to concede freedom of expression to religious enemies. Some who seek to make a martyr out of Lucy Connolly – the mother imprisoned for telling her X followers to ‘set fire’ to hotels housing asylum seekers after the Southport attacks – are silent about the state’s prosecution of Kneecap. Both have been accused of inciting violence; neither deserve to be behind bars.
Let Kneecap play. Every Glastonbury goer with a little good taste can stick to Rod Stewart and the Kaiser Chiefs. In their own time, the band may yet be reconciled to the United Kingdom; stranger things have happened. Johnny Rotten, for instance, has declared himself a monarchist, backed Brexit and Donald Trump, and called for Jacob Rees-Mogg to be prime minister. Before they know it, Kneecap will be performing at a Tory conference.
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