Irish band Kneecap win discrimination case against UK government
Irish language rap group Kneecap have won their discrimination case against the UK government after former business secretary Kemi Badenoch refused them funding.
The trio – who have been criticised by former Tory government members for some of their lyrics – launched legal action, claiming the decision to withhold the grant discriminated against them on grounds of nationalist and political opinion.
After a brief hearing at Belfast High Court on Friday, it was agreed the government would pay the band £14,250 – the same amount the grant was for.
The group’s application to the Music Export Growth Scheme, which supports UK-registered artists in global markets, was initially accepted by the British Phonographic Industry.
But it was later refused by Mrs Badenoch – now Conservative leader – when she was business secretary, as the grant is overseen by the Department for Business and Trade and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
At the time, a government spokesperson said it fully supported freedom of speech, but that it was “hardly surprising” it did not want to hand out UK taxpayers’ money to those opposed to the United Kingdom.
The band said on Friday it would donate the money to two youth organisations in Belfast – one from a nationalist and one from a unionist area.
DJ Provai outside Belfast High Court, with the band’s lawyers. Pic: PA
‘They have tried to silence us’
Band member DJ Provai arrived at court in an old Land Rover styled to look like a police vehicle, which was bearing the Irish and Palestinian flags and blaring loud music.
He was wearing his usual Irish tricolour balaclava, which he removed to enter the court building.
Speaking after the hearing, DJ Provai, whose real name is JJ O’Dochartaigh, said the band’s motivation was “equality”.
“For us, this action was never about £14,250; it could have been 50p,” he said.
“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.”
Pic: PA
He added: “The former secretary of state Kemi Badenoch and her department acted unlawfully; this is now a fact.
“They have tried to silence us and they have failed.”
A statement from the Department for Business and Trade said the government’s priority is to “try and reduce costs and help protect the taxpayer from further expense”.
It said the government will not contest Kneecap’s challenge as it does not believe it is in the public interest.
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Who are Kneecap?
Formed in 2017 in west Belfast, Kneecap consists of three friends who perform under the stage names Mo Chara, Moglai Bap and DJ Provai.
The group have previously voiced views in favour of Irish unity and a particularly provocative poster for their 2019 “Farewell to the Union” tour angered the Conservative Party.
Their song Brits Out (which they told Sky News earlier this year is a tongue-in-cheek poke at government rule) also caused controversy, while their references to drug-taking led to them being banned from Irish public service broadcaster RTE.
But the band has enjoyed huge success both on stage and screen.
Earlier this year they released a biopic film, also called Kneecap, starring Irish-German actor and Oscar nominee Michael Fassbender.
The film was likened to Trainspotting, 8 Mile and 24 Hour Party People by critics and in January, it won the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival, an internationally recognised showcase for independent cinema.
It has also been named as Ireland’s official submission for the best international feature film shortlist at the 2025 Oscars.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
The Salt Path author Raynor Winn’s fourth book has been delayed by her publisher.
It comes amid claims that the author lied about her story in her hit first book. Winn previously described the claims as “highly misleading” and called suggestions that her husband had Moth made up his illness “utterly vile”.
In a statement, Penguin Michael Joseph, said it had delayed the publication of Winn’s latest book On Winter Hill – which had been set for release 23 October.
The publisher said the decision had been made in light of “recent events, in particular intrusive conjecture around Moth’s health”, which it said had caused “considerable distress” to the author and her family.
“It is our priority to support the author at this time,” the publisher said.
“With this in mind, Penguin Michael Joseph, together with the author, has made the decision to delay the publication of On Winter Hill from this October.”
A new release date will be announced in due course, the publisher added.
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Winn’s first book, released in 2018, detailed the journey she and husband took along the South West Coast Path – familiarly known as The Salt Path – after they lost their family farm and Moth received a terminal health diagnosis of Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD).
But a report in The Observer disputed key aspects of the 2018 “true” story – which was recently turned into a film starring Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson.
Raynor and husband Moth (centre) with actors Jason Isaacs (L) and Gillian Anderson (R). Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
Experts ‘sceptical of health claims’
As part of the article, published last weekend, The Observer claimed to have spoken to experts who were “sceptical” about elements of Moth’s terminal diagnosis, such as a “lack of acute symptoms and his apparent ability to reverse them”.
In the ensuing controversy, PSPA, a charity that supports people with CBD, cut ties with the couple.
The Observer article also claimed the portrayal of a failed investment in a friend’s business wasn’t true, but said the couple – whose names are Sally and Tim Walker – lost their home after Raynor Winn embezzled money from her employer and had to borrow to pay it back and avoid police action.
Anderson played Winn in a movie about the couple’s journey. Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
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It also said that, rather than being homeless, the couple had owned a house in France since 2007.
Winn’s statement said the dispute with her employer wasn’t the reason the couple lost their home – but admitted she may have made “mistakes” while in the job.
“For me it was a pressured time,” she wrote. “It was also a time when mistakes were being made in the business. Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry.”
She admitted being questioned by police but said she wasn’t charged.
The author also said accusations that Moth lied about having CBD/CBS were false and had “emotionally devastated” him.
“I have charted Moth’s condition with such a level of honesty, that this is the most unbearable of the allegations,” Winn wrote on her website.
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