The punk-rap duo Bob Vylan is suing the BBC after the broadcaster said the band’s “utterly unacceptable” Glastonbury performance last year contained “antisemitic sentiments”.
Frontman Pascal Robinson-Foster and drummer Wade Laurence George filed separate legal proceedings against the BBC at the high court in Ireland on Tuesday. They also launched defamation proceedings against Irish broadcaster RTÉ in December after it published a news report labelling the chants at Glastonbury to be antisemitic.
“In the immediate aftermath of our performance at Glastonbury 2025, the BBC wasted no time in placing labels upon us that did not, do not and never will fit,” the bandmembers wrote on Instagram under their individual stage names Bobby Vylan and Bobbie Vylan.
The controversy arose after the band led the chant “Death, death to the IDF” at Glastonbury last year, referring to the Israel Defense Forces, which is committing genocide in Gaza.
The BBC broadcasted the chant live on air but later said doing so was a mistake. It then removed the recording from iPlayer and accused Bob Vylan of peddling “antisemitic sentiments”.
In response, Bob Vylan said: “We are not for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people. We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine.”
On Friday, the band wrote on Instagram: “The BBC have attempted to silence those that oppose the heinous crimes taking place in Palestine, instead labelling them as antisemitic, editing their speeches [and] removing their content.”
They added: “These responses are unacceptable. So seeing the opportunity to remind them [of] the power of the people that they are attempting to silence, we had no choice but to take on this fight.”
Following Glastonbury 2025, police investigations into Bob Vylan and fellow anti-Zionist band Kneecap were launched and later dropped.
The British Museum blamed "audience testing" for erasing Palestine from its ancient displays.
Its own emails, released under FOI and revealed by Middle East Eye, show the testing never happened; the labels were rewritten within hours of pro-Israel lobby complaints.
Demand a public correction, in one click:
https://t.co/bUoczBTuMz
This is horrific. The trade deal on Pharma, made to appease the 'most rapacious President in American history', could cost our NHS £444.7bn - or what is estimated as 229,000 lives - by 2036.
Must-read from @chakrabortty.
https://t.co/Ns5EQ2tsFz
This is horrific. The trade deal on Pharma, made to appease the 'most rapacious President in American history', could cost our NHS £444.7bn - or what is estimated as 229,000 lives - by 2036.
Must-read from @chakrabortty.
https://t.co/Ns5EQ2tsFz
😩 Another uncomfortable question for Reform.
Nigel Farage’s biggest donor, Christopher Harborne, has now faced scrutiny over:
💷 a £5m personal gift to Farage (subject to a Parliamentary Standards investigation over declaration rules)
🛢️ business links to fuel supplied from refineries processing Russian crude, reported by The Times as lawful but controversial.
Farage rails against Russia while his top backer profits from the Russian oil supply chain.
The funding questions for Reform just got a lot louder:
Billionaire donors, crypto money and a growing list of questions about transparency and standards.
REP HUFFMAN: “The CEO of Trump’s Freedom 250 flew to Davos, stood in front of a room full of foreign governments and asked them ‘how they wanted to shape America’s birthday’. Then they stole hundreds of millions and committed wire fraud.”
Holy shit.
Some of us warned that this was the goal in October 2023 but we were told it was about the hostages. It was never about the hostages. It was always about conquest and ethnic cleansing.
I am officially nominating Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) for the Nobel Peace Prize.
No President in History has ended the same war so many times.
Our Dear Leader has ended the war with Iran at least 38 times by CNN’s count.
No President has ever done this before.
And he is nowhere near finished ending it.
It’s a record worthy of the Nobel committee’s recognition. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
1. You didn’t respond to my tweet? Do you want to start by deporting your immigrant in laws? Your immigrant father-in-law, after all, was a convicted criminal.
2. Washington actually had people called Muhammad fighting in his Continental Army. Have you ever read US history?
A £5 million "unconditional gift" from a crypto billionaire.
A promise to launch a crypto revolution in Britain.
Yeah, nothing to see here from Nigel "nine-jobs, five-houses" Farage. 👀
Man does his very best to improve ‘the state of Britain’ and some twat decries him for it.
What’s the real reason you don’t want him to do that, Matt Goodwin?
Say it, go on… just say it!
🚨 BOMBSHELL! Mayor Zohran Mamdani drops a massive reality check!
He confirms NYC closed a 12 billion dollar deficit simply by taxing the ultra-wealthy.
He brilliantly exposes how socialist policies are actively fixing years of disastrous capitalist mismanagement.
Oh look, the person in charge of regulating social media has chosen not to regulate social media, and quit this platform instead 🤷♂️
Incompetent? Cowardice? Both?