The BBC has admitted that they royally screwed up by allowing the Bob Vylan set at Glastonbury to air, and doubly so for allowing the stream to continue once the British punk duo started chants of ‘Free Palestine’ and ‘Death to the IDF’.
Here’s how it played out on live TV if you missed it:
Live on BBC: pic.twitter.com/ao8gMzzbii
— ashok | ಅಶೋಕ್ 🇵🇸 (@broseph_stalin) June 28, 2025
The whole thing has sent the BBC, Glastonbury, Keir Starmer and the British establishment in general into complete meltdown, as they’ve interpreted ‘Free Palestine’ and ‘Death to the IDF’ as antisemitic messages. To have 200,000 people chanting those words at Glastonbury + millions watching at home and online around the world? Not ideal if you’re of a particular political leaning when it comes to the situation in Gaza.
And so, the BBC have finally put out a statement, admitting it was wrong to broadcast the performance and that they ‘regret’ not pulling the livestream. Here’s that statement in full:
Poor BBC. They really thought they had it all covered by not streaming Kneecap’s set, but weren’t counting on Bob Vylan crashing the party. Can you imagine if Kneecap and Bob Vylan coordinated the whole thing beforehand?
Meanwhile, Avon and Somerset police are still investigating the footage and are set to decide whether to prosecute Bob Vylan over the comments made during his performance, and naturally Ofcom is conducting its own probe too.
Many people are saying that Bob Vylan should be treated in a similar fashion to Lucy Connolly, the Tory councillor’s wife who was jailed for Tweets in the aftermath of the Southport murders last summer – and still remains behind bars.
Will be very interesting to see how this one plays out, given the backlash will be strong no matter what the police (or rather, the government) decide. Just as well that Glastonbury’s taking a break in 2026 eh?
For news that Gary Lineker’s final interview with Mo Salah was concerned over ‘concerns the pair would discuss Palestine’, click HERE.
