The Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival, a trade union-organised ‘celebration of solidarity’, disinvited the pro-Palestinian artist following behind-the-scenes pressure.

In a summer punctuated by missile strikes and the targeted killings of Palestinians, Israel’s defenders in the UK continue to respond to critics with defamatory allegations and quasi-legal attempts to silence debate. We have now reached a new low: an artist disinvited by an organisation which has historically prized the right to free expression.  

The Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival is a trade union-organised ‘celebration of solidarity’, open to all those prepared to ‘stand up and be counted’ as defenders of workers’ rights. In culture and in political debate, it commemorates the Dorset trade unionists who in 1834 were evicted from their homeland and transported as criminals to Australia. 

The disinvitation of rapper and campaigner Lowkey from the 2022 Festival, following behind-the-scenes pressure, is a denial of solidarity where it is badly needed. Lowkey’s music has inspired and energised audiences, igniting an interest in issues of militarism, economic injustice, and Palestinian rights. It has also provoked attempts at censorship. Earlier this year more than 44,000 people, including actor Mark Ruffalo, musician Kae Tempest and philosopher Cornel West, came to the aid of Lowkey, successfully calling on Spotify to resist pressure from the lobby group ‘We Believe in Israel’ that sought to have him deplatformed. 

Lowkey has been singled out for continuous harassment. What also makes his case significant is that a leading part in the effort to ban him from Tolpuddle was taken by one of the largest unions in Britain, the GMB. Its General Secretary, Gary Smith, wrote to a Festival organiser announcing his ‘severe doubts’ about Lowkey’s appearance and implying that it somehow carried a risk of promoting antisemitism.

No doubt members of the GMB have a genuine concern to fight antisemitism, but the actions of their leader have conflated antisemitism with criticism of Israel, heading off down a path of bans and censorship, and protecting an apartheid state from accountability. Smith’s letter contained phrasing similar to that employed by UK Lawyers for Israel in their attempt to close down Forensic Architecture’s exhibition at the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester. Like UKLFI, Smith asked the hosting institution for evidence that they had consulted with members of ‘the Jewish community’ as part of their planning for the show. In this view, an artwork or performance that contains a critique of state violence requires consultation with an entire ethnic group (defined at the convenience of the lawyers who claim to represent it). 

It is ironic and deplorable that a festival held to commemorate – rightly – the injustice inflicted on a small group of trade unionists should now deny freedom of expression to those who protest the dispossession of a whole people. This attack is part of an international project to silence the many powerful voices in the cultural sphere that are critical of Israel. The GMB union, and the TUC itself, co-organiser of Tolpuddle, must explain why they have placed the trade union movement in such vicious company. 

* Photo: Lowkey performing at Manchester’s O2 Ritz, 7 Sep 2017. (Sakura / WENN.com via Alamy)