Kneecap win discrimination case against UK government following arts grant withdrawal

Kneecap have won their case against the UK government over Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch’s decision to block their arts funding earlier this year. 

Belfast’s high court found the government acted illegally in refusing to issue a £14,250 arts grant to the Irish rap trio, according to reports by the Guardian and NME. The UK Department for Business and Trade will not challenge the new decision and called the initial block “unlawful and procedurally unfair”. 

“For us this action was never about £14,250, it could have been 50 pence”, Kneecap said in a statement posted to Instagram. “The motivation was equality. This was an attack on artistic culture, an attack on the Good Friday Agreement itself and an attack on Kneecap and our way of expressing ourselves.”

“The former Secretary of State Kemi Badenoch and her Department acted unlawfully, this is now a fact”, they continued. “They broke their own laws in trying to silence Kneecap… They didn’t like our views, in particular our opposition to the ‘United Kingdom’ itself and our belief in a United Ireland which is our right to do… What they did was a fascist type action, attempt to block art that does not agree with their views after an independent body made a decision. Their own courts has now found in Kneecap’s favour, as we knew they would. They have tried to silence us and they have failed.”

Kneecap went public with their legal action against the UK government and former secretary Badenoch in June, saying they successfully applied for the British Phonographic Industry funding award as part ofMusic Export Growth Scheme in 2023 but were later denied funds. The grant is given under the Department for Business and Trade and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and then-secretary Badenoch blocked the funds, the Guardian reports: “A government spokesperson said it did not want to give taxpayers’ money to ‘people that oppose the United Kingdom itself’.”

Kneecap will be splitting the £14,250 they’ll finally receive between the organisations Glór Na Móna in Ballymurphy and RCity Belfast on the Shankill Road. 

Over the summer, Kneecap celebrated the wide release of their self-titled film, fictionalising the formation of their group in Belfast. Revisit Brian Coney’s in-depth interview with Kneecap from the lead-up to the film’s UK release and on the heels of their festival performances, including Glastonbury. 

Read Kneecap’s Instagram statement in full below.