Rap group Kneecap win legal battle against UK government

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Belfast rap trio Kneecap have won a legal battle against the UK government after the business department then led by Kemi Badenoch denied them arts funding because they “oppose the United Kingdom”.

The High Court in Belfast heard on Friday that the UK government would not contest the case and acknowledged that the ministry’s decision to block the grant earlier this year had been “unlawful”. Badenoch is now leader of the opposition Conservative party.

“They broke their own laws in trying to silence Kneecap,” the Irish rap group said in a statement, slamming what it called a “fascist” attempt to “block art that does not agree with their views”.

The group’s barrister, Ronan Lavery, read an agreed statement in court characterising the funding denial as “unlawful, procedurally unfair”.

Kneecap were awarded £14,250 — equivalent to the grant funding that they had applied for under the Music Export Growth Scheme.

The Department for Business and Trade confirmed a settlement had been reached.

“This government’s priority is to get on delivering the change we promised and protect the taxpayer from further expense, so we will not continue to contest Kneecap’s challenge as we do not believe it in the public interest,” a DBT spokesperson said.

A spokesman for Badenoch 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.

“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 our money.”

Group member JJ Ó Dochartaigh, better known as DJ Próvaí, arrived at the court in a repurposed RUC Land Rover flying Irish and Palestinian flags. The Royal Ulster Constabulary was the police force at the time of the Troubles conflict in Northern Ireland.

Kneecap — the stars of a prizewinning film that has been selected as Ireland’s entry for the Oscars — posted on social media platform X: “We’re at the “royal” courts of justice in Belfast here to steal some of the kings money (hopefully).”

Wearing his trademark balaclava in Ireland’s green, white and orange colours, DJ Próvaí, told reporters the lawsuit had never been about the money.

“The motivation was equality. 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,” he said, referring to the region’s 1998 peace deal.

He added Kneecap would give the £14,250 awarded to two youth organisations who “work with the two communities to create a better future for our young people”. One is a group working on the unionist Shankill Road; the other offers youth services through the Irish language.

Kneecap said the UK government had taken exception to a tour poster of former prime minister Boris Johnson on a rocket, the group’s condemnation of the conflict in Gaza and “in particular our opposition to the ‘United Kingdom’ itself and our belief in a United Ireland, which is our right”.

Their lawyer, Darragh Mackin, called it “a victory for the arts, for culture, for the freedom of expression”.