On-screen warnings issued by the BBC about discriminatory language during Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury set were “not good enough”, a minister has said.
The BBC is facing questions after the musician Bobby Vylan – of the punk-rap duo Bob Vylan – led crowds at the festival’s West Holts stage in chants of “Free, free Palestine” and “Death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]” on Saturday.
Keir Starmer has said there is “no excuse” for the chanting, and the corporation said it showed a warning during the set’s stream about the “very strong and discriminatory language”.
The Bob Vylan set was shown live on an iPlayer stream but the footage has since been removed from the BBC’s streaming services.
The equalities minister, Jacqui Smith, said that, while she did not believe the BBC was biased on the war in Gaza, a line had been crossed during its Glastonbury coverage.
“These were clearly comments that overstepped the mark. I’m surprised that the BBC carried on broadcasting them live when it was obvious what was happening. I think the BBC also have questions to answer about how they continued to broadcast this for the time that they did,” she told Sky News on Monday.
Bob Vylan, whose two members go by Bobby Vylan and Bobbie Vylan, played immediately before Kneecap on Saturday. The BBC had decided not to broadcast the latter’s set live amid controversy over the band’s support for Gaza at previous gigs.
Describing himself as a “violent punk”, Bobby Vylan said on stage: “Sometimes we have to get our message across with violence because that’s the only language some people speak, unfortunately.”
The BBC’s warnings were “not good enough”, Smith said on Monday. She told Times Radio: “I think it [the BBC] made a mistake here. It’s not good enough simply to say on screen that, you know, this is dodgy language. It was far beyond that and it shouldn’t have been broadcast live. And I think it would have been possible for the BBC to stop that.”
Smith added that she thought there would be “lots of people” at the festival who “were also remembering the music festival in Israel on the 7 October 2023, where young people got grabbed from that music festival, kidnapped and murdered, and will want to reflect on that as well”.
A former head of news and current affairs at Channel 4, Dorothy Byrne, said that, had the BBC wanted to act more decisively on the broadcast, it would have been technically possible.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme there were questions to answer about the research it had done into Bob Vylan, adding: “They should really have had a politics producer in the gallery ready to advise them when and if something went wrong.
“I would have expected them to have an alternative feed available anyway because things can go wrong and there were lots of other acts on at the time. I’m surprised they just left it on with a warning rather than cut away because it’s wrong to call for anyone to be killed.”
She said the Glastonbury coverage should not be held to the same standard on impartiality expected of news programming. But she added that the BBC’s coverage meant it was the focus of controversy “when we should be discussing events in Gaza”.
Bobby Vylan stood by his actions, posting on Sunday on Instagram: “I said what I said” and calling for a “change in foreign policy”.
He added: “As we grow older and our fire possibly starts to dim under the suffocation of adult life and all its responsibilities, it is incredibly important that we encourage and inspire future generations to pick up the torch that was passed to us.
“Let us display to them loudly and visibly the right thing to do when we want and need change. Let them see us marching in the streets, campaigning on ground level, organising online and shouting about it on any and every stage that we are offered.”
