Senior BBC figures should resign over the “shocking editorial failure” which led to the live broadcast of “death to the IDF” chants during a Glastonbury performance by Bob Vylan, insiders have said.
Director-General Tim Davie is facing pressure, with police urged to mount a criminal investigation into claims that the live-streamed performance may have breached hate speech laws.
On Saturday, Bobby Vylan, singer with the pro-Palestinian punk duo, led chants calling for death to members of the Israeli military and “from the river to the sea” – considered by some to be a call for the annihilation of the Jewish state.
Glastonbury Festival said it was “appalled” by the actions of the group on stage on Saturday, adding that it “crossed a line”.
The festival said it had told everyone involved in the production that there was “no place for antisemitism, hate speech or incitement to violence” at the event. The festival would not say whether Bob Vylan, who also appeared last year, would continue to be platformed.
Bobby Vylan of Bob Vylan crowd surfs during his performance on the West Holts Stage (Photo: PA)BBC staffers said the most severe consequences should follow. The scenes from Saturday follow repeated warnings in the lead-up to the festival that the BBC must not allow its extensive coverage to be hijacked by pro-Palestinian activists.
On Sunday, the Irish garage punk band Sprints performed against a backdrop saying: “Israel is committing genocide. Use your voice.”
Members of the Glastonbury team had been sent on BBC antisemitism training, staffers claimed. But nothing was done to stop the live feed for Bob Vylan.
One insider said: “Letting Bob Vylan go out live and unfiltered was a shocking editorial failure. They are supposed to monitor the live feeds. Someone should have cut it straight away. Senior heads should roll. What are all the people we send to Glastonbury doing there? Having a big party?”
An estimated 400 BBC staff and freelancers descended on the Somerset site to cover the festival.
Avon and Somerset Police said video evidence would be assessed by officers “to determine whether any offences may have been committed that would require a criminal investigation”.
The controversy before Glastonbury surrounded Irish rap group Kneecap’s set, which was eventually broadcast in full on iPlayer, including attacks on Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza, with minor edits.
The BBC said the set has been edited “to ensure the content falls within the limits of artistic expression in line with our editorial guidelines and reflects the performance”.
It emerged on Sunday that the Metropolitan Police would take no further action against Kneecap after an earlier gig in which one person from the band appeared to tell the crowd: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.”
Who reported Bob Vylan to the police?
The group of pro-Israel lawyers which reported Bobby Vylan to police for encouraging a chant of “death, death to the IDF” during his performance alleged that the singer may have breached two sections of the law.
UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLI), which seeks to provide legal support for attacks against the country in Britain, said the rap punk performer may have infringed Section Five of the Public Order Act, which makes it an offence to cause someone “harassment, alarm or distress” by using threatening words or behaviour. The group claimed that Section 18, which guards against racial hatred, may also apply to Vylan’s actions.
A spokesperson for UKLI said: “The band was able to lead a gullible audience into a chant of ‘death, death to the IDF’, demonstrating how easily led a crowd can be.”
The group was also highly critical of the BBC, saying it had “failed to exercise any judgment” over the performance.
The BBC may also have committed an offence by allowing the remarks by Bobby Vylan to be broadcast during its coverage of Glastonbury. Section 22 of the Public Order Act, makes it an offence if remarks intended to, or likely to, stir up racial hatred are broadcast – particularly if it would have been “reasonably practicable” for the BBC to remove that content prior to broadcast.
The UKLI group said it should have been the case that the BBC had someone monitoring the punk rap duo’s performance so that coverage could have been discontinued or switched to a different stage as soon as the offensive chant began. However, the legal group said it thought the Crown Prosecution Service would be “reluctant” to bring such a case and that it is more likely regulators will be asked to intervene.
Cahal Milmo
Amid the uproar over Kneecap, Bob Vylan were allowed to slip under the radar, with questions over the way the on-site BBC Studios production team dealt with the highly-politicised content of the duo’s performance.
A senior former BBC music producer said: “Bob Vylan should never have been taken live. Red lights should have been flashing.
“The BBC has been promoting the group on Radio 1, 6 Music and TV. They have been on Later…with Jools Holland. Everyone knows they are highly political and extremely anti-Israel. When the BBC said it wouldn’t show Kneecap live but approved Bob Vylan, they made sure they turned their set into an unavoidable pro-Palestinian rally instead.”
Irish rap trio Kneecap perform on the West Holts stage (Photo: PA)Bob Vylan advertised their live stream on Instagram beforehand, writing: “Turns out we’re finally at a point where the BBC trust us on live tv!”
One staffer disclosed that they had been sent on an antisemitism training course with members of the festival production team just weeks before Glastonbury. “There was a detailed conversation about how the word Zionist is being used instead of Jew and that it’s deeply offensive,” they said.
“That should have triggered the gallery to pull the plug when Bob Vylan called a record company boss a ‘f***ing Zionist’. Did none of that go in? It takes a second to pull a live feed.”
A Jewish BBC staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity, added: “Evidently incitement to kill the Jewish army doesn’t breach guidelines. This is just about the worst thing the BBC has ever done because it had 40 minutes to make that call but clearly felt this horrifically antisemitic content wasn’t serious enough. How do you think that makes Jewish staffers feel?”
Another staffer criticised the BBC for putting up an onscreen message that the performance may contain “discriminatory language.” They said: “That doesn’t cover incitement to violence and it never should.”
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch described the band’s actions as “grotesque”. She wrote on X: “Glorifying violence against Jews isn’t edgy.”
What the BBC and Glastonbury said about Bob Vylan
Danny Cohen, the former BBC Director of Television, said the broadcast breached editorial rules, which state: “Broadcasting hate speech can constitute a criminal offence if it is intended or likely to stir up hatred relating to race, or intended to stir up hatred relating to religious belief.”
Cohen said: ‘The BBC guidelines are clear. There are serious concerns that the BBC may have committed a criminal offence in broadcasting this hateful, racist material. Along with the police investigation, the BBC’s Board, led by Chairman Samir Shah, must urgently look into how this was allowed to happen.
“The BBC has repeatedly shown itself unable to get its own house in order on antisemitism,” Cohen claimed, citing “bias” from reporters on BBC Arabic and the Gaza documentary which was withdrawn over some participants’ undeclared links to Hamas.
Although the BBC has been challenged in the courts – most recently by Gerry Adams who won a libel victory against the corporation – there is no precedent for a prosecution for its content inciting racial hatred.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism called on BBC Director-General Tim Davie to take responsibility and quit for allowing the “dissemination of this extremist vitriol”.
Davie has had “more than enough chances to stop this abuse of licence fee payers’ money to platform bigots and extremists from Gaza to Glastonbury”.
The Director-General took an urgent call from Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy on Saturday demanding to know why the BBC streamed the Bob Vylan set live.
A spokesperson for Nandy said: “We strongly condemn the threatening comments made by Bob Vylan at Glastonbury.”
A BBC spokesperson said: “Some of the comments made during Bob Vylan’s set were deeply offensive. During this live stream on iPlayer, which refected what was happening on stage, a warning was issued on screen about the very strong and discriminatory language.”
The BBC declined to say which executives were on site during the Bob Vylan set and why no action was taken to halt the live broadcast.
It removed the Vylan performance from iPlayer but the move was dismissed by critics who said the offensive remarks had already gone viral on social media.
Glastonbury said that performers’ presence at the festival said “should never be seen as a tacit endorsement of their opinions and beliefs”.
“However, we are appalled by the statements made from the West Holts stage by Bob Vylan yesterday,” the festival said, adding: “Their chants very much crossed a line and we are urgently reminding everyone involved in the production of the Festival that there is no place at Glastonbury for antisemitism, hate speech or incitement to violence.”
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