Great Escape music festival in doubt over artist exodus in protest of Israel link

At time of writing, 126 acts have withdrawn from performing at the Great Escape music festival that’s due to be held in Brighton from today until Saturday (18 May). The number represents over a quarter of the festival’s line-up.

The walkout is in protest of festival sponsor Barclays Bank. Barclays has been the focus of Bands Boycott Barclays, an online campaign for music festivals to divest from sponsors that are invested in Israel.

Bands Boycott Barclays originally made a petition against the Great Escape festival which was promoted by Bristol-based queer punk band The Menstrual Cramps. The petition raised signatures from over 200 of the 500-strong festival line-up. It also collected high-profile signatories not playing the festival including Massive Attack.

“As musicians, we are calling on The Great Escape to drop Barclays as a partner. Barclays is funding Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians through its financial ties with arms companies that sell weapons to Israel,” the petition reads.

It refers to the heavy bombing campaign that Israel is carrying out on the Gaza strip, and Barclays’ involvement in providing the Israeli Defence Force with its munitions. “These bombings are bankrolled by Barclays, which invests over £1bn in – and provides financial services worth over £3bn to – companies supplying weapons and military technology to Israel, used in its attacks on Palestinians.”

The two main companies the campaign mentions are General Dynamics and Elbit Systems. Barclays has invested £100 million (€116 million) in “General Dynamics, which provides gun systems for the fighter jets used by Israel to bomb the Gaza Strip” and £2.7 million (€3.1 million) in Elbit Systems which “supplies the Israeli military with armoured drones, munitions and artillery weapons used in its attacks on Palestinians,” according to the campaign.

Barclays has reputed claims they invest in nine companies which arm Israel. “We trade in shares of listed companies in response to client instruction or demand and that may result in us holding shares. We are not making investments for Barclays and Barclays is not a “shareholder” or “investor” in that sense in relation to these companies,” a statement from the bank reads.

Taking cues from the 90s Artists Against Apartheid movement that tackled apartheid in South Africa, the Bands Boycott Barclays campaign refuses “to let music be used to whitewash human rights violations. We cannot let our creative outputs become smokescreens behind which money is pumped into murdering Palestinians.”

Last month, when Euronews Culture first reported on the petition, six artists had pulled out of the festival in response to the petition. Those artists were Cherym, Mui Zyu, Hongza, Lambrini Girls, LVRA, The New Eves and ZHEANI.

Record label Alcopop! Records also pulled out of the festival noting that “when The Menstrual Cramps and [promoter] How to Catch a Pig explained the Barclaycard situation, Alcopop! and Big Scary Monsters felt strongly about standing in solidarity and stepping away from the line-up. To be associating our label with Barclays doesn't sit right with our ethical standpoint, and if we can do anything to help raise awareness, and ultimately highlight the corporate greed at the heart of this horrendous genocide in Gaza, we will.”

Today on the day the festival is due to begin, the number of artists who have dropped out has risen to over a quarter of the total line-up.

The petition lists over 100 acts who have confirmed they have pulled out as follows:

Other acts who have also confirmed they have pulled out of the festival online include the drag queen Bimini Bon Boulash, Lizzie Berchie, Picture Parlour, and Miso Extra in the hours since the list was published.

It’s a significant moment for the boycott movement which has seen protests outside 50 branches of Barclays in the UK as well as individual cases of vandalism to buildings associated with the bank.