UK PM blasts ‘deeply concerning’ Kanye festival plans

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has criticized the London music festival for allowing Kanye West to headline after the American rapper’s Nazi message.

Starmer said it was “deeply concerning” that the musician, also known as Ye, would headline July’s Wireless Festival in Finsbury Park, north London.

The rapper has faced widespread criticism in recent years after he began expressing admiration for Adolf Hitler and made a number of anti-Semitic statements.

Just a few months after advertising the sale of a swastika T-shirt on his website, he released a song called Heil Hitler in 2025.

“It is extremely worrying that Kanye West is performing at Wireless, despite his previous anti-Semitic statements and celebration of Nazism,” Starmer said in a comment first reported by The Sun newspaper on Sunday.

“Antisemitism 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.”

The 48-year-old rapper’s appearance at Wireless Festival comes amid growing concerns about anti-Semitism in the UK.

In March, four ambulances belonging to a Jewish community-run service were set on fire in north-west London.

Two men and a 17-year-old boy accused of burning vehicles were taken into custody after appearing in court on Saturday.

Two people were killed in an attack on a synagogue in Manchester in October.

The Sun on Sunday also published criticism from a number of Jewish community organizations calling for the Wireless Festival to rethink about allowing West to headline.

Holocaust Education Foundation boss Karen Pollock told the paper that the reservation “caused distress on the Jewish community in Britain due to its previous anti-Semitism and support for Hitler”.

“Wireless should reconsider whether they want to provide a platform for this hateful anti-Semitism,” he said.

Phil Rosenberg, chairman of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said allowing West to play was “absolutely the wrong decision”.

The musician 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.”

Wireless Festival has been contacted for comment.