What Kneecap stand for is completely intolerable, Starmer says

By Jonathan McCambridge, Press Association

The British prime minister has said what rap trio Kneecap stand for and say is “completely intolerable”.

Keir Starmer said the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) would be looking at a judgment that a member of the group will not face a terror trial “very carefully”.

Kneecap rapper Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, had been accused of displaying a flag in support of proscribed terror organisation Hezbollah at a gig at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town, north London, on November 21st 2024.

But the case was thrown out in September last year, with chief magistrate Paul Goldspring ruling the proceedings were “instituted unlawfully”.

The CPS appealed against the decision at the High Court at a hearing in January, with the Kneecap rapper opposing the challenge.

In a judgment on Wednesday, two judges at the High Court upheld the decision and dismissed the CPS appeal.

Judge Goldspring had agreed with Ó hAnnaidh’s lawyers that prosecutors needed to seek the Attorney General’s permission to charge the rapper before informing him on May 21st that he would be charged with a terror offence.

This permission was sought and given the following day, which the court heard meant the charge fell outside the six-month time frame in which criminal charges against a defendant can be brought.

Asked during a visit to Belfast about the decision to bring the case against the group member, Starmer said: “My views on Kneecap are very well known in relation to what they stand for and what they say, which is completely intolerable.

“I think the CPS were obviously subject to the High Court decision and they will be looking at the judgment very carefully.”

In a statement released after the judgment on Wednesday, Ó hAnnaidh said: “This entire process was never about me, never about any threat to the public and never about ‘terrorism’, a word used by the British Government to discredit people you oppress both in Ireland and across the world.

“It was always about Palestine and about what happens if you dare to speak up. About what happens if you can reach large groups of people and expose their hypocrisy.

“I will not be silent. Kneecap will not be silent.”