Kanye West headlining Wireless festival is ‘deeply concerning’, says Keir Starmer | Kanye West
Keir Starmer said it was “deeply concerning” that US rapper Kanye West, who has made a series of anti-Semitic comments, performed at a British music festival.
The Prime Minister agrees with others who have criticized the Wireless festival for booking the musician, also known as Ye, to headline all three nights in London.
The rapper has faced widespread condemnation in recent years after he began expressing his admiration for Adolf Hitler and made a series of anti-Semitic statements.
Last year, he released a song called Heil Hitler, a few months after advertising the sale of a swastika T-shirt on his website.
Starmer said: “It is extremely worrying that Kanye West is performing at Wireless despite his previous antisemitic rhetoric and celebration of Nazism.
“Anti-Semitism in all its forms is abhorrent and must be opposed clearly and unequivocally wherever it occurs. It is everyone’s responsibility to ensure that Britain is a place where Jewish people feel safe and secure,” he added in comments first reported by the Sun on Sunday.
Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey called on the government to ban Westerners from entering the UK, saying: “We need to get tougher on antisemitism.” He described West’s planned appearance as “extremely serious.”
The Jewish Leadership Council last week condemned Wireless festival for booking the rapper to perform in the wake of increasing attacks on the UK’s Jewish community. The organizers’ behavior was described as “highly irresponsible”.
Phil Rosenberg, chairman of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, also said allowing West to play was “absolutely the wrong decision”.
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London’s spokesman, said: “We are clear that this artist’s past comments and actions were offensive, wrong and do not reflect the values of London. This was a decision taken by the festival organisers, not a decision involving the City Hall.”
West apologized for his anti-Semitic remarks in a letter published as a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal in January.
In his letter, he apologized to Jews and people of color and said his bipolar disorder led him to “a four-month-long manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behavior that destroyed my life.”
The Pepsi-sponsored wireless festival has been contacted for comment.
