Director-General Tim Davie is facing pressure, with police urged to mount a criminal investigation into claims that the live-streamed performance may have breached hate speech laws.
Glastonbury Festival said it was “appalled” by the actions of the group on stage on Saturday, adding that it “crossed a line”.
Bobby Vylan of Bob Vylan crowd surfs during his performance on the West Holts Stage (Photo: PA)
BBC staffers said the most severe consequences should follow. The scenes from Saturday follow repeated warnings in the lead-up to the festival that the BBC must not allow its extensive coverage to be hijacked by pro-Palestinian activists.
Members of the Glastonbury team had been sent on BBC antisemitism training, staffers claimed. But nothing was done to stop the live feed for Bob Vylan.
An estimated 400 BBC staff and freelancers descended on the Somerset site to cover the festival.
The controversy before Glastonbury surrounded Irish rap group Kneecap’s set, which was eventually broadcast in full on iPlayer, including attacks on Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza, with minor edits.
It emerged on Sunday that the Metropolitan Police would take no further action against Kneecap after an earlier gig in which one person from the band appeared to tell the crowd: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.”
Who reported Bob Vylan to the police?
The group of pro-Israel lawyers which reported Bobby Vylan to police for encouraging a chant of “death, death to the IDF” during his performance alleged that the singer may have breached two sections of the law.
UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLI), which seeks to provide legal support for attacks against the country in Britain, said the rap punk performer may have infringed Section Five of the Public Order Act, which makes it an offence to cause someone “harassment, alarm or distress” by using threatening words or behaviour. The group claimed that Section 18, which guards against racial hatred, may also apply to Vylan’s actions.
A spokesperson for UKLI said: “The band was able to lead a gullible audience into a chant of ‘death, death to the IDF’, demonstrating how easily led a crowd can be.”
The group was also highly critical of the BBC, saying it had “failed to exercise any judgment” over the performance.
The BBC may also have committed an offence by allowing the remarks by Bobby Vylan to be broadcast during its coverage of Glastonbury. Section 22 of the Public Order Act, makes it an offence if remarks intended to, or likely to, stir up racial hatred are broadcast – particularly if it would have been “reasonably practicable” for the BBC to remove that content prior to broadcast.
The UKLI group said it should have been the case that the BBC had someone monitoring the punk rap duo’s performance so that coverage could have been discontinued or switched to a different stage as soon as the offensive chant began. However, the legal group said it thought the Crown Prosecution Service would be “reluctant” to bring such a case and that it is more likely regulators will be asked to intervene.
Cahal Milmo
A senior former BBC music producer said: “Bob Vylan should never have been taken live. Red lights should have been flashing.
Irish rap trio Kneecap perform on the West Holts stage (Photo: PA)
Bob Vylan advertised their live stream on Instagram beforehand, writing: “Turns out we’re finally at a point where the BBC trust us on live tv!”
“That should have triggered the gallery to pull the plug when Bob Vylan called a record company boss a ‘f***ing Zionist’. Did none of that go in? It takes a second to pull a live feed.”
Another staffer criticised the BBC for putting up an onscreen message that the performance may contain “discriminatory language.” They said: “That doesn’t cover incitement to violence and it never should.”
What the BBC and Glastonbury said about Bob Vylan
Danny Cohen, the former BBC Director of Television, said the broadcast breached editorial rules, which state: “Broadcasting hate speech can constitute a criminal offence if it is intended or likely to stir up hatred relating to race, or intended to stir up hatred relating to religious belief.”
“The BBC has repeatedly shown itself unable to get its own house in order on antisemitism,” Cohen claimed, citing “bias” from reporters on BBC Arabic and the Gaza documentary which was withdrawn over some participants’ undeclared links to Hamas.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism called on BBC Director-General Tim Davie to take responsibility and quit for allowing the “dissemination of this extremist vitriol”.
The Director-General took an urgent call from Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy on Saturday demanding to know why the BBC streamed the Bob Vylan set live.
A BBC spokesperson said: “Some of the comments made during Bob Vylan’s set were deeply offensive. During this live stream on iPlayer, which refected what was happening on stage, a warning was issued on screen about the very strong and discriminatory language.”
It removed the Vylan performance from iPlayer but the move was dismissed by critics who said the offensive remarks had already gone viral on social media.
“However, we are appalled by the statements made from the West Holts stage by Bob Vylan yesterday,” the festival said, adding: “Their chants very much crossed a line and we are urgently reminding everyone involved in the production of the Festival that there is no place at Glastonbury for antisemitism, hate speech or incitement to violence.”
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