Kneecap wins its discrimination case against the British government

Belfast rap group Kneecap has won a discrimination case against the British government, over the group’s arts council funding being revoked.

The Irish language artists were awarded a £14,250 (€17,120) grant under the Music Export Growth Scheme (MEGS) in February this year. This was then revoked by the then-UK Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch.

A spokesperson for Badenoch said at the time that the government did not want to fund “people that oppose the United Kingdom itself”.

Kneecap challenged Badenoch’s decision at Northern Ireland’s High Court, claiming it was “unlawful and procedurally unfair”. The court agreed with the group at the hearing on Friday (29 November) and awarded it the MEGS grant money back.

“For us this action was never about £14,250, it could have been 50 pence. 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,” the group said in a statement.

The group plans to split the money between two Belfast youth organisations, ‘Glór Na Móna’ in Ballymurphy and ‘RCity Belfast’ on the Shankill Road.

Badenoch had originally announced £1.6 million (€1.9 million) funding in February, to boost 67 artists from across the UK and support homegrown musical talent. After being approved as one of the 67 artists by the selection board, Badenoch’s department intervened.

In a social media statement, Kneecap said: “The former Secretary of State Kemi Badenoch and her Department acted unlawfully, this is now a fact.”

“They don’t like that we oppose British rule, that we don’t believe that England serves anyone in Ireland and the working classes on both sides of the community deserve better; deserve funding, deserve appropriate mental health services, deserve to celebrate music and art and deserve the freedom to express our culture,” Kneecap has said of their win over Badenoch.

Badenoch has since become the leader of the opposition Conservative Party, following their electoral defeat in July.

Kneecap are two MCs, Móglaí Bap and Mo Chara, along with DJ Provaí. Fond of merging Gaelic with English, and blending balaclava-wearing satire with socially conscious lyrics and plenty of drug and sex references, the band have been active since 2017.

They have been labelled controversial because of their outspoken lyrics, use of Troubles-related imagery, and provocative merchandise. Most of all, they take rap back to its roots as being a music genre to voice opposition and challenge the establishment.

The group previously claimed that their 2019 ‘Farewell to the Union’ tour poster had “pissed off the Tories”, explaining: “Once again the British government is trying to silence voices from west Belfast – once again it will fail!”.

The band exploded onto the worldwide musical scene this year, especially with the release of their second album ‘Fine Art’, alongside a semi-autobiographical film which we called “an absolute blast, a high-energy and frequently hilarious”.