US revokes Bob Vylan visas after death chant at Glastonbury Festival

UK police investigating after Saturday's performance

Bob Vylan vocalist Bobby Vylan crowd-surfs at Glastonbury. PA

Punk-rap duo Bob Vylan have had their US visas revoked after their Glastonbury Festival performance, where the English group led the crowd in chants against the Israeli military.

Singer Bobby Vylan chanted: “Death, death to the IDF,” referring to the Israel army, and called for the liberation of Palestine.

Deputy US secretary of state Christopher Landau said this was a “hateful tirade” as he explained why the duo's visas had been revoked. They had been due to tour the US this year.

From Kneecap to Jade Thirlwall, Palestine has been Glastonbury's loudest refrain

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“Foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country,” Mr Landau wrote on X.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has condemned what he called “appalling hate speech”.

Police said they have launched a criminal investigation into the performance by Bob Vylan, and another group playing at Glastonbury, Kneecap. A Kneecap member said on stage that “Israel are war criminals”.

“There is no place in our society for hate,” the police said in a statement.

US State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters that the incident had created national security concerns.

"If they're going to be coming here to be helpful, to be nice people, to be great tourists, or if they're coming for other reasons … every sovereign nation has a right to decide who is going to come," Ms Bruce said.

"It really is about our standards about who we let in the country. We're not telling people what they can sing about or what they can say … It really is about the issue of national security, about issues of violence, the increase, certainly, of anti-Semitism, but of terrorism in general."

The BBC, which broadcast Bob Vylan's performance, is facing a backlash. It has removed the recorded performance from its online Glastonbury coverage.

Bobby Vylan, a member of the duo alongside Bobbie Vylan, had initially started the performance by leading a “Free Palestine” chant but later switched to the death chant.

“We're seeing some messed up things happening in the world and we're seeing the UK and US being complicit in war crimes and genocide happening over there to the Palestinian people,” the vocalist said.

Pro-Palestinian activism was again a prominent presence at this year’s Glastonbury Festival, with performing artists amplifying calls to end what many describe as a “genocide” in Gaza.

Concluding on Sunday at Worthy Farm , the influential festival, which was attended by more than 200,000 people, was marked by widespread calls from musicians and audiences to end the ongoing violence, suffering and starvation.

Social media reaction globally has been dominated by the movement, with many clips of Palestinian flags and “free Palestine” chants going viral across the world.

Israel's war in Gaza – which followed the 2023 attacks by Hamas-led fighters on Israel that resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people and the capture of 240 hostages – has killed at least 56,500 people and injured more than 118,000.

The war has prompted increased incidents of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in various parts of the world.