A HOME Office minister has urged MPs not to name the band Kneecap after their "dangerous and irresponsible" alleged comments about killing politicians.
Dan Jarvis pulled up Tory MP Mark Francois, who secured an urgent question in Westminster, for naming the band and told others to avoid doing so as to "not give them any further publicity".
The minister, responding for the Home Secretary who did not appear for the question, also refused to call on Glastonbury to drop the band from this year's line-up, saying that was a matter for the festival.
He confirmed that footage of one member of the Irish republican hip-hop group, which appeared to show him saying "The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP", was being assessed by counter-terrorism police.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp (above) denounced the "despicable evil that Kneecap represents".
The minister told MPs: "Let me first gently say to [Francois], he mentioned the name of the band on a number of occasions: I deliberately. did not name them and will not name them.
"It's for [MPs] to choose what language they would use but my advice is not to give them any further publicity by naming them. I won't be naming them and I would suggest that other members don't either."
Jarvis’s decision not to name the band will have echoes for those familiar with the history of the Troubles of the UK Government’s ban on allowing members of Sinn Fein to speak on television and the radio. The ban was famously circumvented by broadcasters, who used voice actors to dub statements from the party.
Francois blasted Labour because they allowed the band to collect public funding after abandoning a legal fight with Kneecap last year – which he called a "surrender".
Under the Tories, the UK Government had attempted to block the hip-hop group from receiving public funding under a British Phonographic Industry scheme, but this position was abandoned after Labour came to power.
At the time, the Department for Business and Trade argued that settling the case, which saw the band awarded £14,250 which was donated to charities on either side of the sectarian divide in Belfast, meant the taxpayer was not exposed to "further expense".
Jarvis said Labour had "inherited" the legal saga with Kneecap, on which he accused the Tories of failing to take proper legal advice, but added: "We are deeply concerned about all of these things that have made up this case and that is precisely why [...] we are now, rightly, taking the opportunity to review the scheme [under which the band were awarded funding]."
First Minister John Swinney has called for the band to be dropped from the TRNSMT line-up, calling the alleged comments "beyond the pale".
Downing Street on Monday said that Kneecap would be prevented from receiving any further public funds.
The band issued an apology to the families of David Amess and Jo Cox, two MPs who were killed, and denied accusations they supported Hamas and Hezbollah.
The statement said: "Establishment figures, desperate to silence us, have combed through hundreds of hours of footage and interviews, extracting a handful of words from months or years ago to manufacture moral hysteria.
“This distortion is not only absurd – it is a transparent effort to derail the real conversation.”
