The UK government has cancelled Kanye West’s permission to enter the country amid controversy over his planned headline appearances at London festival Wireless this summer.
The US rapper’s shows at the July festival have subsequently been cancelled, and the event will now no longer go ahead this year. In a statement, Festival Republic, the promoter behind Wireless, said: “The Home Office has withdrawn YE’s ETA, denying him entry into the United Kingdom. As a result, Wireless Festival is cancelled and refunds will be issued to all ticket holders.”
The statement continued: “As with every Wireless Festival, multiple stakeholders were consulted in advance of booking YE and no concerns were highlighted at the time. Antisemitism in all its forms is abhorrent, and we recognise the real and personal impact these issues have had. As YE said today, he acknowledges that words alone are not enough, and in spite of this still hopes to be given the opportunity to begin a conversation with the Jewish community in the UK.”
The Home Office told the BBC that the rapper made an application to travel to the UK yesterday (6 April) via an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA). The government department decided against granting the visa on the grounds that his presence would not be conducive to the public good.
Responding to the news, Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “The Government has clearly made the right decision here. For once, when it said that antisemitism has no place in the UK, it backed up its words with action.
“Someone who has boasted of making tens of millions of dollars from selling swastika T-shirts and who released a song called ‘Heil Hitler’ just months ago clearly would not be conducive to the public good in the UK. Wireless Festival, in its desperate quest for profit, defended the invitation until the end. That is shameful, and its sponsors should continue to stay away.”
Wireless had already been facing difficulties over its booking of West with sponsors such as Pepsi and PayPal removing their association from the festival following pressure placed on them. Both companies and other sponsors had, however, been made aware of the booking of the rapper before it was publicly announced.
Controversy around West stems from a series of public outbursts made mostly via social media in recent years, in which he shared a number of antisemitic, racist and pro-Nazi comments. He also released a song called ‘Heil Hitler’ last year, and sold merchandise bearing swastikas on them.
In January, he took out a full-page ad in The Washington Post to apologise for his past actions, attributing them to his bipolar-1 disorder, which he said he developed after medics previously failed to diagnose a frontal-lobe injury sustained in a car crash in 2002.
“I am not a Nazi or an antisemite,” he wrote in that ad. “I love Jewish people.” He added that his bipolar disorder meant he “lost touch with reality,” and ultimately gravitated towards “the most destructive symbol I could find, the swastika”.
He continued: “One of the difficult aspects of having bipolar type-1 are the disconnected moments – many of which I still cannot recall – that led to poor judgment and reckless behavior that oftentimes feels like an out-of-body-experience. I regret and am deeply mortified by my actions in that state, and am committed to accountability, treatment, and meaningful change. It does not excuse what I did though.”
In a new statement issued this morning before the government’s decision was confirmed, West said: “I’ve been following the conversation around Wireless and want to address it directly. My only goal is to come to London and present a show of change, bringing unity, peace and love through my music. I would be grateful for the opportunity to meet with members of the Jewish community in the UK in person, to listen. I know words aren’t enough – I’ll have to show change through my actions. If you’re open, I’m here.”
Responding to those words, the Board of Deputies of British Jews had said it was “willing” to meet the rapper, but only on the condition that he pulled out of his planned performances at Wireless.
In a statement, the board said: “It has been less than a year since Kanye West released a song entitled ‘Heil Hitler’, the culmination of three years of appalling antisemitism. He also made a number of deeply offensive comments about the black community, saying that the 400-year experience of slavery was ‘like a choice’.”
The Board’s president, Phil Rosenberg, added: “The Jewish community will want to see a genuine remorse and change before believing that the appropriate place to test this sincerity is on the main stage at the Wireless Festival.”
Last night, Melvin Benn, Managing Director of Festival Republic, issued his own statement, saying he was “a deeply committed anti-fascist,” but added: “Having had a person in my life for the last 15 years who suffers from mental illness, I have witnessed many episodes of despicable behaviour that I have had to forgive and move on from. If I wasn’t before, I have become a person of forgiveness and hope in all aspects of my life, including work.”
Benn continued: “What Ye has said in the past about Jews and Hitler is as abhorrent to me as it is to the Jewish community, the Prime Minister and others that have commented and – taking him at his word – to Ye now also.
“Forgiveness and giving people a second chance are becoming a lost virtue in this ever-increasing divisive world and I would ask people to reflect on their instant comments of disgust at the likelihood of him performing (as was mine) and offer some forgiveness and hope to him as I have decided to do.”
