Kneecap Should Play Glastonbury

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer PM is a deeply irritating person. He said something at the weekend which means I now have to defend those nincompoops, Kneecap.

Last week, Kneecap had their big day out in Westminster magistrates’ court and this weekend they are going to have their big day out at Glastonbury. The PM does not approve and believes it is not “appropriate”. The irony. If Starmer was still a barrister he would be in court defending Kneecap with the other three KCs they have hired.

In an interview with the Sun, the Prime Minister was asked if he thought the trio should perform at Glastonbury. “No, I don’t, and I think we need to come down really clearly on this,” Starmer said. “This is about the threats that shouldn’t be made, I won’t say too much because there’s a court case on, but I don’t think that’s appropriate.”

No. What the PM is saying is clearly not ‘appropriate’. As I explained previously, Kneecap member Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh has been charged with the summary only terrorism offence and awaits trial having been granted unconditional bail.

This makes the t-shirt worn by his bandmates Naoise O Cairealláin and JJ Ó Dochartaigh at Westminster magistrates’ court saying “Free Mo Chara” a bit pointless.

Ó hAnnaidh was free before his court hearing and managed somehow to walk out of court also a free man having been granted not just bail, but unconditional bail. Even if he is found guilty of the offence, it is very unlikely he will be given a custodial sentence given he is of previous good character.

So the lads need a new t-shirt. To be honest I was a bit disappointed. I expected a lot more from the rebels. Perhaps a ‘Fuck this Court’ t-shirt in honour of Larry Flynt could work. Flynt was best known for being producer of Hustler magazine and was party to two important Supreme Court cases on the first amendment Keeton v. Hustler (1983) and Hustler v. Falwell (1988). In one of the court cases Flynt wore a ‘Fuck this Court’ t-shirt, but his attempt to show it to the court was scuppered by marshals who had him quickly removed.

During the proceedings in Keeton v. Hustler Magazine, Flynt shouted “Fuck this court!” and called the justices “nine assholes and one token cunt” (referring to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor). That’s a bit rude. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger had him arrested for contempt of court but the charge was later dismissed.

Flynt is depicted in the movie The People v Larry Flynt, which is excellent and a decent education on freedom of speech laws in the United States. Justice Scalia, one of the great Supreme Court justices, was part of the unanimous decision in Hustler v. Falwell.

The Supreme Court held in that case that public figures, such as Jerry Falwell, may not recover damages for the intentional infliction of emotional distress without showing that the offending publication contained a false statement of fact which was made with “actual malice”.

A lead story in the November 1983 issue of Hustler magazine featured a parody of an advertisement claiming that Falwell, a fundamentalist minister and political leader, had a drunken incestuous relationship with his mother in an outhouse. Falwell sued to recover damages for libel, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Falwell won a jury verdict on the emotional distress claim and was awarded a total of $150,000 in damages. Hustler magazine appealed and won in the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court added that the interest of protecting free speech under the First Amendment surpassed the state’s interest in protecting public figures from patently offensive speech, so long as such speech could not reasonably be construed to state actual facts about its subject.

Did you know you can actually purchase a t-shirt of Larry Flynt wearing a ‘Fuck This Court’ t-shirt? A t-shirt of a man wearing a t-shirt. The genius of capitalism!

So what I want from the lads in August is for them to wear one of those t-shirts while also wearing a Keffiyeh scarfs, a Palestinian flag and tri-colour balaclava. Sure, all this merch might threaten their health should there be a London heatwave but just think of the GDP figures!

I got distracted again. I was at Westminster magistrates’ court and ended up in the United States Supreme Court. But the subject is still relevant – namely freedom of speech.

Britain may not have the First Amendment but things are not so bad that the three nincompoops must get pulled from the middle-class festival Glastonbury because one of them has been charged with the summary only offence. What nonsense is this?

If Starmer is referring to threats Kneecap previously made about MPs which I condemned here, then the ship has sailed on that one. They were not charged with any criminal offence and if they were to be pulled from the line-up it should have been immediately. So leave Kneecap to play Glastonbury, at least they will give the festival an edge and they are the right side of 30. The organisers know that if they lose the lads it will just turn into one of those boomer festivals for boomers who think they are still young and I can’t be doing with that. Not of course that I will be listening.

Laura Perrins is a conservative commentator and former barrister. Subscribe to her Substack, where this article first appeared.