Latitude, Download and Isle of Wight festivals no longer sponsored by Barclays
Barclays will no longer sponsor Latitude, Download or Isle of Wight festivals after musicians and comedians dropped out in protest over the bank’s ties to the Israel-Hamas war.
Live Nation, the concert promoter, told Sky News: “Following discussion with artists, we have agreed with Barclays that they will step back from sponsorship of our festivals.”
Upcoming Live Nation festivals across the UK this summer include Latitude, Download and the Isle of Wight.
Barclays signed a five-year sponsorship deal with Live Nation in 2023. It’s not clear if the suspension will apply to all events up to 2028.
Comedians Joanne McNally, Sophie Duker, Grace Campbell, and Alexandra Haddow all announced they would be boycotting Latitude Festival last week.
Musicians including CMAT, Pillow Queens, Mui Zyu, and Georgia Ruth had also pulled out of the event.
Download Festival, which comes to Donington Park, Leicestershire this weekend, had seen acts including Pest Control, Ithaca, Scowl, Speed and Zulu pull out, also over the festival’s sponsorship.
‘Facilitating genocide’
In a statement on Instagram, Pest Control wrote: “We will not take part in an event whose sponsor profits from facilitating a genocide”.
Meanwhile, Ithaca wrote on X: “Whilst we hate letting anyone down, this moment of solidarity sends a powerful message to the organisers about where the younger generation of bands stand”.
A spokesperson for Barclays told Sky News: “Barclays was asked and has agreed to suspend participation in the remaining Live Nation festivals in 2024”.
Pic: Palestine Action/X
Barclays calls on ‘leaders’ to ‘stand united’ against activist pressure
Palestine Action, a group whose members attacked 20 of the bank branches across England and Scotland last week, has accused Barclays of having financial interests in both Israel’s weapons trade and fossil fuels.
The UK-based Palestine Solidarity Campaign has called for a general boycott of the bank, while the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has named Barclays as one of their “divestment and exclusion” targets.
Barclays’ statement went on: “The protestors’ agenda is to have Barclays debank defence companies which is a sector we remain committed to as an essential part of keeping this country and our allies safe.
“They have resorted to intimidating our staff, repeated vandalism of our branches and online harassment. The only thing that this small group of activists will achieve is to weaken essential support for cultural events enjoyed by millions.
“It is time that leaders across politics, business, academia and the arts stand united against this.”
Barclays has said while it provides financial services to “public companies that supply defence products to NATO and its allies” it does not directly invest in the firms.
Latitude Festival told Sky News: “Following discussion with artists, we have agreed with Barclays that they will step back from sponsorship of Latitude Festival”.
Comedians pull out en masse
Taskmaster star McNally, who had been set to close the Latitude Festival on Saturday wrote in an Instagram story last week: “I’m getting messages today about me performing at Latitude when it’s being sponsored by Barclays.
“I’m no longer doing Latitude. I was due to close the comedy tent on the Sunday night, but I pulled out last week.
“I’m on the old artwork but I haven’t been listed on the site since I pulled out a week ago.”
Comedian Duker had shared a photo of her at a previous Latitude Festival, and confirmed she would be boycotting the event.
She wrote: “I am committed to minimising my complicity in what I consider to be a pattern of abhorrent, unlawful violence”.
The 34-year-old comedian also said her pro-Palestinian stance “has gained me violent abuse, targeted pile-ons and death threats”.
Fellow comedian Grace Campbell, who is the daughter of Sir Tony Blair’s former spokesman Alastair Campbell, shared Duker’s post in an Instagram story, announcing she was also pulling out of the festival.
Meanwhile, comedian Alexandra Haddow said she too would no longer appear at Latitude, writing on Instagram: “I can’t in good conscience take the fee.”
In a post shared on her Instagram account last week, Irish singer-songwriter CMAT said she would boycott Latitude, writing: “I will not allow my precious work, my music, which I love so much, to get into bed with violence.”
Isle Of Wight Festival. Pic: AP
Campaign groups celebrate victory
In response to the exodus of acts, Barclays previously defended its position, saying it recognised “the profound human suffering” caused by the Israel-Hamas war.
“We provide vital financial services to US, UK, and European public companies that supply defence products to NATO and its allies,” it said in a statement published online.
“Barclays does not directly invest in these companies. The defence sector is fundamental to our national security and the UK government has been clear that supporting defence companies is compatible with ESG considerations.
“Decisions on the implementation of arms embargos to other nations are the job of respective elected governments.”
Bands Boycott Barclays declares victory
In response to Barclays stepping away, campaign group Bands Boycott Barclays, which has been leading the protests, wrote on Instagram: “This is a victory for the Palestinian-led global BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement.
“As musicians, we were horrified that our music festivals were partnered with Barclays, who are complicit in the genocide in Gaza through investment, loans and underwriting of arms companies supplying the Israeli military.
“Hundreds of artists have taken action this summer to make it clear that this is morally reprehensible, and we are glad we have been heard.
“Our demand to Barclays is simple: divest from the genocide, or face further boycotts. Boycotting Barclays, also Europe’s primary funder of fossil fuels, is the minimum we can do to call for change.”
Last month, more than 100 acts dropped out of The Great Escape Festival in Brighton and Hove due to its ties to Barclays.
Climate campaigners also welcomed the move to suspend the Barclaycard sponsorship.
‘Rotten bank’
Joanna Warrington at Fossil Free London said: “Barclays is a rotten bank: artists, brands, clients, and customers are all abandoning Barclays because of the billions Barclays is ploughing into fossil-fuel companies like Shell and Israeli arms companies dropping bombs on innocent Palestinian children.
“This won’t stop until Barclays stops funding destruction.”
Greenpeace UK’s co-executive director Areeba Hamid said: “This bank is the biggest fossil-fuel funder in Europe, bankrolling oil and gas to the tune of billions of pounds, and has now been linked to arms companies involved in the conflict in Gaza.
“By putting an end to the greenwashing, festival organisers are sending a clear signal to Barclays that it’s time they took responsibility for the destructive industries they fund.”
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Festival sponsors face growing scrutiny
Barclays has confirmed that despite no longer being associated with the festivals, their customers with tickets will not be affected and their tickets will remain valid.
In a similar turn of events, Hay Festival dropped its sponsorship with investment management firm Baillie Gifford last month, after numerous celebrities pulled out due to the company’s links with fossil fuels and businesses linked to the Israeli defence industry.
Activist group Fossil Free Books urged high-profile figures to distance themselves from the literary event, which saw performers including comedian Nish Kumar, singer Charlotte Church and Labour MP Dawn Butler pull out.
While in March many artists refuse to play SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas, due to the event’s connections to the US army and weapons companies linked with the conflict.
Download Festival will be held in Donington Park, Leicestershire this weekend.
The Isle of Wight Festival will be held in Seaclose Park, Newport, between 20 – 23 June, headlined by The Prodigy, Pet Shop Boys and Green Day.
Tens of thousands of people are expected to attend Latitude Festival at Henham Park in Suffolk, held from the 25-29 July.
One of the UK’s largest water companies is considering shipping supplies from Norway to the UK.
Southern Water said the idea was a “last-resort contingency measure” in case of extreme droughts in the early 2030s.
Up to 45 million litres could be brought to the UK per day under the proposals.
The Financial Times, which first reported the potential move, said the water, from melting glaciers by fjords in the Scandinavian country, would be transported by tankers.
It comes as fears grow over the future of water services in the UK following droughts in the summer of 2022 when some areas of the country came close to running out of supplies.
The Financial Times said Southern Water was in “early-stage” talks with Extreme Drought Resilience Service, a private UK company that supplies water by sea tanker.
The firm would pay for the measure out of customers’ bills, according to the report.
Southern Water, which covers Hampshire, Kent, East and West Sussex, and the Isle of Wight, currently gets its supplies from groundwater and rare chalk streams.
However, the Environment Agency (EA) has urged the firm to reduce its reliance on such sources amid concerns over the environmental impact and fears they could make the risk of droughts worse.
‘Costly and carbon-intensive’
Water firms have come under growing criticism in recent years over sewage spills and rising bills, with households facing an average increase of 21% over the next five years.
Companies have also been urged to improve their infrastructure to help supplies. Currently around a fifth of water running through pipes is lost to leaks, according to regulator Ofwat.
And a report by the EA earlier this year found that Southern Water, along with Anglian Water, Thames Water and Yorkshire Water, was responsible for more than 90% of serious pollution incidents.
Following criticism over sewage discharges, Southern Water’s chief executive Lawrence Gosden blamed “too much rain” in 2023 for the problem during an interview with ITV News.
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The company said it was facing a shortfall of 166 million litres per day in Hampshire alone during future droughts.
But the firm said it was already undertaking other measures to address the problem, including by building the UK’s first new reservoir in more than three decades in Havant Thicket.
However, Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist Dr Doug Parr criticised the Norway proposal and said the firm should focus more on addressing issues domestically.
“Tankering in huge quantities of water from Norway will inevitably be a costly and carbon-intensive alternative to that of doing a better job with the water resources that are available in a rainy country like the UK,” he said.
He added: “Despite the obvious failings of planning, water companies need to start thinking of potable fresh water as a precious and finite resource, and plan to start treating it as such.”
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From 2022: How can we protect ourselves from water crisis?
Tim McMahon, Southern Water’s managing director for water, said: “We put less water into supply now than we did 30 years ago and measures like reducing leakage have enabled us to keep pace so far with population growth and climate change.
“As we work to take less water from our chalk streams and build new reservoirs like Havant Thicket in Hampshire, we need a range of options to help protect the environment while this infrastructure comes online.”
Mr McMahon added: “Importing water would be a last resort contingency measure that would only be used for a short period in the event of an extreme drought emergency in the early 2030s – something considerably worse than the drought of 1976.
“We’re committed to continuing to work with our regulators on developing the right solutions to meet the challenge of water scarcity, while protecting the environment.”
Boeing and union negotiators will meet later in a fresh bid to end strikes by workers that have hammered plane production, exacerbating the fallout from the company’s safety crisis.
The company, which is bidding to revive its fortunes under a new chief executive, has more than 32,000 staff refusing to work.
They walked out of factories in the Seattle area and in Oregon, which make aircraft including its 737 MAX models, on 13 September in protest at new contracts.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) is demanding the workers get a 40% pay rise.
It is also seeking the restoration of a defined benefit pension plan.
Boeing made this week, what it said was, a “best and final offer” of a 30% pay rise over four years and a performance-related bonus.
The union has refused to put the offer to a vote, declaring it falls short of what its members find acceptable.
Two previous days of negotiations ended without agreement.
Boeing 737 Max aircraft are parked behind a picket line in Washington. Pic: AP
Boeing placed tens of thousands of other workers on furlough as the strike began.
Production of its best-selling planes, the 737 MAX models, had already been hurt by curbs imposed by regulators in the wake of the mid-air Alaska Airlines scare in January that saw a panel blow out, forcing the 737 MAX 9 plane into an emergency landing.
Investigators examine the panel which failed during a flight on a Boeing MAX 9 jet in January
The incident prompted renewed safety scrutiny of Boeing after the scandal that followed the fatal crashes of MAX 8 planes in 2018 and 2019, blamed on faulty flight control software.
The production limits imposed on Boeing this year have further harmed deliveries to customers globally, including Ryanair.
Europe’s largest carrier by passengers, which has blamed Boeing’s delays for cuts to its expansion plans this year, made clear it feared extended delays to deliveries of new planes this week when asked about the impact of the strikes.
“The union is ready for this opportunity to bring forward the issues that members have identified as critical to reaching an agreement,” IAM said in a statement.
“We know that the only way to resolve this strike is through negotiations.”
Boeing, which has seen its shares fall 40% in the year to date, did not comment ahead of the talks.
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Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, said of the dispute this week: “Boeing remains deep in a wage row, which is spelling fresh production trouble ahead.
“Shareholders who hoped that the arrival of a new CEO Kelly Ortberg in August would help the company make a fast exit from its difficulties are sorely disappointed. The deep-seated nature of the challenges the company is facing has come even starker, given the rejection of 30% pay offer to staff.
“Relations between management, union leadership and staff appear to have broken down further, given complaints by workers that they weren’t given time to vote on the latest proposal.”
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