Until last week, Kanye West was set to headline all three nights of Wireless festival this July, here in the UK.
It would have marked his return to the UK music scene after an eleven-year hiatus, since headlining at Glastonbury in 2015. Since then, he has dedicated years of his life to trying to incite his followers to hate Jews.
In the interim period, Mr West has made numerous media appearances ranting about the “Jewish media“ and “Jewish Zionists”, claiming that “Jewish people own the Black voice” and has used his social media platform to make disturbing comments such as threatening to go “death con 3 on Jewish people” in 2022.
Kanye West has more followers than there are Jews on Earth, so his incitement has a huge impact.
It is disappointing that venues have been so quick to invite someone who was so recently peddling conspiracy theories, Hitler worship and bigoted lies – including one of the UK’s biggest festival stages.
His cycle of apology and relapse has become a routine, and we must wait to see if this time is any different. What is notable is that the latest apology – in which he blamed his outbursts on mental health issues resulting from a car accident in the early 2000s – came on the eve of the release of a new album, which his appearance at Wireless would promote. We have seen this pattern before.
If he remains on the right path and makes more effort to make amends, that is well and good, but if he returns to his old ways these venues would have had much to answer for.
The Prime Minister expressed his concern at the prospect of Wireless hosting someone whose anti-Jewish bigotry has gone as far as recording a track titled ‘Heil Hitler’ less than a year ago.
But, as we pointed out across media channels and newspapers, the Prime Minister is not a bystander.
The Government can ban anyone from entering the UK who is not a citizen and whose presence would “not be conducive to the public good”.
Surely this, we forcefully argued, is a clear case.
After all, Beatbox, Budweiser, Diageo, Paypal, Pepsi and Rockstar Energy all dropped Wireless over the invitation.
It is a reminder of how back in 2022 after over 180,000 people signed our petition, Adidas joined other brands and agencies including Balenciaga, Vogue Magazine and Creative Arts Agency, and cut ties with Mr West following his abhorrent antisemitic comments. Our petition went viral, and was endorsed by celebrities and influencers around the world.
Here in 2026, though, Wireless refused to budge. Melvin Benn, the festival’s promoter, told us that he spent a gap year in Israel several decades ago and that he forgives Mr West. It was an insult to our intelligence.
Mr Benn, incidentally, is also the Director of Glastonbury Festival, which last year brought us Bob Vylan’s “Death death to the IDF” and “f***ing Zionists” and Kneecap.
This was about profit, not forgiveness. Nobody knows what might have come out of Mr West’s mouth on that stage or subsequently, least of all Mr Benn.
That is why we then said that if the appearances went ahead, we would organise a mass demonstration outside the festival, whose organisers should be ashamed of themselves.
Mr West offered to meet with the Jewish community. To that we said that he and Wireless had to choose: profit or principle. If Mr West were to cancel his appearances at Wireless, it would be a sign, we said, that he may be genuine in his remorse. If he did not, then a meeting with Jewish groups could in our view serve no purpose other than to kosher his invitation to the festival – which we would play no part in.
Kayne West is responsible for tracks with titles such as ‘Heil Hitler’ and ‘Gas chamber’. We want to see genuine signs of remorse from the man who last year said he made $40 million by selling swastika t-shirts via an ad he ran during the Super Bowl.
After our interviews across broadcast channels – including BBC, ITV, GB News, Sky News, Channel 4, LBC, Talk TV, Radio 5 and others, with news channels like the BBC using our talking points even when we weren’t on air, the Government announced that Kanye West would be barred from entering the UK.
The Government clearly made the right decision here. For once, when it said that antisemitism has no place in the UK, it backed up its words with action.
Someone who has boasted of making tens of millions of dollars from selling swastika t-shirts and who released a song called ‘Heil Hitler’ just months ago clearly would not be conducive to the public good in the UK.
Wireless Festival, in its desperate quest for profit, defended the invitation until the end. That is shameful. Then, with no headliner and multiple sponsors dropping out, Wireless felt it had no choice but to cancel the festival.
How did it come to this? Apparently “no concerns were highlighted” about Kanye West at the time of the booking. That’s what happens when the only stakeholders you consult are those who stand to make a profit.
It’s nice that Wireless suddenly began saying, “Antisemitism in all its forms is abhorrent,” when just a few hours earlier the festival promoter was saying that we all need to forgive Kanye for declaring himself a full-blown Nazi only recently.
There are plenty of musicians in the world who could have headlined this festival and brought delight to thousands of fans. Maybe next time organisers should look beyond Nuremberg to fill their roster.
