The Belfast hip-hop group Kneecap have obtained legal clearance to contest a government decision to withhold £15,000 in funding because of their political views.
The high court in Belfast on Thursday granted the Irish language rappers leave to seek a judicial review at a full hearing in November after they return to Northern Ireland from a US tour.
The band member DJ Próvaí, whose real name is JJ Ó Dochartaigh, welcomed the ruling and said the case was not about money but freedom of expression.
“Fifteen grand wouldn’t pay for the bar tab in America. This is an attack on artistic culture, an attack on the Good Friday agreement and an attack on us and our way of expressing ourselves,” he told reporters outside the court. “We are paying taxes and surely we have a right to the benefit of those taxes, regardless of our political beliefs.”
Kneecap applied last year for a grant from the music export growth scheme, an independent government-backed arts initiative that provides funding to promote artists overseas. A panel of the British Phonographic Industry, which administers the scheme, approved the request.
However, the Department for Business and Trade and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport oversee the scheme, and the business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, rescinded the funding. A spokesperson said the government did not want to give taxpayers’ money “to people that oppose the United Kingdom itself”.
Critics said it set a troubling precedent for political expression.
Kneecap said a poster for their 2019 Farewell to the Union tour had angered the Conservative party. The rappers deploy and subvert republican tropes in their songs, including the 2019 hit Get Your Brits Out, and use images of petrol bombs and burning police Land Rovers. The group takes its name from the Troubles-era paramilitary tactic of targeting knees in so-called punishment attacks.
DJ Próvaí wears a balaclava in the colours of the Irish flag. The other band members are Mo Chara, whose real name is Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, and Móglaí Bap, AKA Naoise Ó Cairealláin.
Lawyers for the group accused Badenoch of abusing her power for an unlawful purpose and said her intervention discriminated against Kneecap on grounds of religious belief or political opinion as well as racial grounds of nationality and ethnic origin.
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Kneecap’s barrister, Ronan Lavery KC, told the court the government had conceded there were arguable grounds of challenge. “It’s a shame I wasn’t able to say that in Irish,” he said. Mr Justice Scoffield granted leave to apply for a judicial review.
Kneecap’s solicitor, Darragh Mackin of Phoenix Law, welcomed the case’s progression. “The secretary of state has now conceded that she has a case to answer,” he said.
A semiautobiographical film about the band’s origins won the audience award at the Sundance film festival in January.
