Why have a quarter of The Great Escape’s line up pulled out?

It was a long, hard win­ter in Britain. With the excep­tion of per­haps the last week, spring has also been a dud – the cold, grey bleak­ness of Jan­u­ary seemed to bleed right through to May. For those of us not blessed to live in oth­er more trop­i­cal parts of the world, or with­out means to get there, the promise of Sum­mer – of pints with your mates, of beach­es, park days and fes­ti­val sea­son have been all that have seen us through.

Today, May 15^th, is sup­posed to mark the begin­ning of the sea­son as The Great Escape fes­ti­val kicks off in sun­ny Brighton. The cur­tain rais­ing event is, accord­ing to their web­site, ​“the fes­ti­val for new music, show­cas­ing 500 emerg­ing artists from all over the world in 30+ walk­a­ble venues across the city and a pop-up fes­ti­val site on Brighton Beach.”

The fes­ti­val is also attend­ed by many in the music indus­try, who use the show­cas­es to hunt for the ​“next big thing.” A con­fer­ence is run along­side the gigs fea­tur­ing ​“insight­ful pan­els, top­i­cal debates, keynote speech­es and net­work­ing opportunities.”

It is a major point in the UK music land­scape, and presents a huge oppor­tu­ni­ty to many new and emerg­ing artists to catch the eye of indus­try exec­u­tives. This year, how­ev­er, the fes­ti­val has been thrown into chaos. At the time of writ­ing, it is esti­mat­ed that around 25 per cent of all those billed to play have with­drawn from doing so. The 126 acts include all those sched­uled to play at the open­ing par­ty this evening, as well as high pro­file names like Alfie Tem­ple­ton, Bimi­ni, Lam­bri­ni Girls and more.

The boy­cott comes in protest at the inclu­sion of Bar­clays bank as a major part­ner of the event. A spokesper­son from Bands Boy­cott Bar­clays, who have been coor­di­nat­ing the action, said, ​“Bar­clays is bankrolling the geno­cide in Gaza and then laun­der­ing its rep­u­ta­tion at home by part­ner­ing with music fes­ti­vals. As musi­cians, we think that’s despi­ca­ble and needs to stop. There is no fes­ti­val with­out the artists and we stand uncon­di­tion­al­ly in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Pales­tini­ans in refus­ing to allow our music to be used as cul­tur­al cov­er for a bank that sup­ports geno­cide. Bar­clays has no place at any music festival.”

A spokesper­son from the Pales­tin­ian Cam­paign for the Aca­d­e­m­ic and Cul­tur­al Boy­cott of Israel (PACBI) told Huck: ​“Pales­tini­ans salute the dozens of prin­ci­pled artists, record labels and oth­ers who have boy­cotted The Great Escape fes­ti­val in Brighton, UK over its part­ner­ship with Bar­clays, which has over £1 bil­lion invest­ed in weapons man­u­fac­tur­ers that are arm­ing Israel’s #GazaGeno­cide.

Accord­ing to new research by Cam­paign Against the Arms Trade, Pales­tine Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cam­paign and War on Want, Bar­clays has over $2.5 bil­lion in share­hold­ings in com­pa­nies asso­ci­at­ed with the IDF’s ongo­ing mil­i­tary activ­i­ty in Gaza. Israeli mil­i­tary forces have so far killed over 35,000 peo­ple accord­ing to Pales­tin­ian author­i­ties, 70 per cent of whom are women and chil­dren. In Jan­u­ary, the ICJ ruled that there was a ​“real and immi­nent risk” of geno­cide car­ried out by IDF against Palestinians.

The data was obtained by Pro­fun­do, an inde­pen­dent research organ­i­sa­tion using finan­cial data­bas­es to iden­ti­fy the loans and under­writ­ing ser­vices pro­vid­ed by Bar­clays for com­pa­nies sup­ply­ing weapons and mil­i­tary tech­nol­o­gy to Israel for the peri­od from Jan­u­ary 2019 to Decem­ber 2023. The com­pa­nies include the Lon­don Head­quar­tered BAE Sys­tems, which is one of the world’s largest arms producers.

The Research by CAAT, PSC and WoW alleged that weapons con­tain­ing com­po­nents man­u­fac­tured by BAE sys­tems, and fight­er jets and drones devel­oped by the com­pa­ny in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Lock­heed Mar­tin have been used in the cur­rent assault in the strip and the naval block­ade of Gaza, which has been in place since 2007.

It is alleged by activists that Bar­clays had over $1.3 bil­lion in share­hold­ings in Feb­ru­ary 2024 and had pro­vid­ed almost $600 mil­lion in loans and under­writ­ing to the arms com­pa­ny between Jan­u­ary 2019 and Decem­ber 2023.

Bar­clays did not offer spe­cif­ic com­ment on the alle­ga­tions above but point­ed to recent­ly released Q+A they pub­lished on the sub­ject. In it they state, ​“Bar­clays has been the sub­ject of crit­i­cism in rela­tion to Gaza based on two argu­ments: that Bar­clays is an investor in these busi­ness­es, and that we pro­vide a range of finan­cial ser­vices to clients which pro­duce equip­ment used by the Israeli Defence Force.

“We have been asked why we invest in nine defence com­pa­nies sup­ply­ing Israel, but this mis­takes what we do. We trade in shares of list­ed com­pa­nies in response to client instruc­tion or demand and that may result in us hold­ing shares. We are not mak­ing invest­ments for Bar­clays and Bar­clays is not a ​“share­hold­er” or ​“investor” in that sense in rela­tion to these companies.”

One of those com­pa­nies Bar­clays is alleged to be finan­cial­ly embroiled with is Israeli Arms com­pa­ny Elbit Sys­tems. At its AGM the bank con­firmed that it has a cor­po­rate bank­ing rela­tion­ship with the UK busi­ness, Elbit Sys­tems UK, which is a sep­a­rate com­pa­ny. The Israeli iter­a­tion of the com­pa­ny, which cam­paign­ers allege the Bank has $3.4 mil­lion in share­hold­ings in, is said to be one of the pri­ma­ry weapons sup­pli­ers to the Israeli mil­i­tary, pro­vid­ing armoured drones, bombs and muni­tions to the IDF.

It is claimed that, along­side aid­ing in the con­struc­tion and main­te­nance of Israel’s ille­gal Apartheid wall in the occu­pied West Bank, the com­pa­ny has also been asso­ci­at­ed with the pro­duc­tion of banned clus­ter bombs.

On the sub­ject of Elbit specif­i­cal­ly, Bar­clays have stat­ed, ​“An asso­ci­at­ed claim is that we invest in Elbit, an Israeli defence man­u­fac­tur­er which also sup­plies the UK armed forces with equip­ment and train­ing. For the rea­sons men­tioned, it is not true that we have made a deci­sion to invest in Elbit. We may hold shares in rela­tion to client dri­ven trans­ac­tions, which is why we appear on the share reg­is­ter, but we are not investors. We note also that Elbit is high­light­ed because cam­paign­ers claim it makes clus­ter bombs. We would cease any rela­tion­ship with any busi­ness where we saw evi­dence that it man­u­fac­tures clus­ter bombs or components.”

In March 2010, the largest Swedish pen­sion fund, Foer­s­ta AP-Fonden, banned invest­ment in Elbit due to its alleged links ​“to vio­la­tions of fun­da­men­tal con­ven­tions and norms”. In July 2014, Dutch com­pa­ny Delta Lloyd Asset Man­age­ment exclud­ed Elbit from its port­fo­lio, cit­ing the company’s role in the pro­duc­tion of con­tro­ver­sial weaponry.

In Decem­ber 2018, glob­al bank­ing giant HSBC divest­ed from Elbit fol­low­ing months of pres­sure from human rights cam­paign­ers. AXA Invest­ment Man­agers also with­drew direct invest­ments in Elbit Sys­tems in the same month cit­ing the com­pa­nies involve­ment in the pro­duc­tion of ​‘banned clus­ter muni­tions’. Less than a year lat­er Norway’s largest pen­sion scheme KLP pub­lished a posi­tion paper out­lin­ing Elbit Sys­tems’ exclu­sion from its port­fo­lio for ​“breach of weapons cri­te­ri­on.” The com­pa­ny also exclud­ed Gen­er­al Dynam­ics, Raytheon and Rolls-Royce for ​“gross and/​or sys­tem­at­ic vio­la­tions of gen­er­al­ly accept­ed stan­dards of respon­si­ble busi­ness conduct.”

Bar­clays is alleged to have share­hold­ings and/​or pro­vid­ed loans and under­writ­ing to all three companies.

In March 2022 Australia’s Future Fund banned invest­ment in Elbit sys­tems cit­ing its involve­ment in the pro­duc­tion of banned weapons and in Feb­ru­ary of this year (2024) Itochu avi­a­tion, a divi­sion of Japan’s Itochu Cor­po­ra­tion, and Nip­pon Air­craft sup­ply co. both end­ed their respec­tive part­ner­ships with Elbit Sys­tems, cit­ing the ICJ’s inter­im ruling.

Bar­clays has been the tar­get of boy­cott protests for many years because of its alleged com­plic­i­ty with the above. These protests have only increased in the wake of the death and destruc­tion in Gaza at the hands of the IDF. The cam­paign for The Great Escape to drop Bar­clays as a spon­sor was launched 5 weeks ago with a let­ter signed by over half the line up and many oth­er bands and acts. With the let­ter appear­ing to be ignored by the fes­ti­val, bands began to announce they would no longer be appearing.

One such act, who con­firmed on her Insta­gram that she would not be per­form­ing is Drag super­star Bimi­ni. In a sto­ry post­ed this morn­ing she stat­ed ​“I believe music has the pow­er to con­nect us but I can­not sup­port the spon­sor­ships that prof­it over the loss of inno­cent lives. Human­i­ty is not for sale.

The boy­cott has been the source of some con­tro­ver­sy. Aus­tralian singer, Nick Cave – who pre­vi­ous­ly called cul­tur­al boy­cott of Israel ​“shame­ful and cow­ard­ly” when he played in the coun­try in 2018 – told an anony­mous band who ques­tioned whether they should boy­cott to ​“play”.

Else­where, oth­er music indus­try giants, many of whom signed the open let­ter to The Great Escape, have been more sup­port­ive. One of those is Mas­sive Attack, who told Huck, ​“We’ve end­less, spe­cial respect for younger artists or artists at ear­li­er stages of their careers who choose to take a stand against cor­po­rate sup­port for apartheid and now geno­cide in Palestine.

“Whether it’s apartheid and geno­cide in Gaza, or the fund­ing of new fos­sil fuel extrac­tion world­wide, Bar­clays has repeat­ed­ly proven it is with­out con­science. Bar­clays there­fore has no place in any music fes­ti­val or any cul­tur­al event. Sol­i­dar­i­ty with and total respect to all musi­cians who’ve tak­en this stand.”

Many who have pulled out are at an ear­ly stage in their careers, in a noto­ri­ous­ly dif­fi­cult and closed indus­try. Hang Lin­ton, an emerg­ing inter­dis­ci­pli­nary artist from Leeds, stat­ed, ​“I will be pulling out of my show­case in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the boy­cott. I can only urge us all, as grass­roots musi­cians and organ­i­sa­tions, to col­lec­tive­ly remove our labour. Per­form­ing at The Great Escape this year will not define our careers. With­out us there will be no fes­ti­val, we have the pow­er to say no. Free Pales­tine and boy­cott Barclays.”

Despite mul­ti­ple efforts to reach out to the fes­ti­val and its par­ent com­pa­ny Live Nation, organ­is­ers of the boy­cott have said they have been met with silence. Nei­ther The Great Escape or Live Nation respond­ed toHuck’s request for comment.

Delilah Bön, anoth­er artist who has pulled out, stat­ed, ​“See­ing the hor­rors hap­pen­ing cur­rent­ly in Gaza, Pales­tin­ian sol­i­dar­i­ty should be at the fore­front. I’m shocked that The Great Escape fes­ti­val have not respond­ed to calls to drop their part­ner Bar­clays, who are active­ly fund­ing geno­cide, forc­ing artists like myself to pick between ​‘busi­ness’ and my own ethics. I stand with the BDS move­ment and Pales­tin­ian sol­i­dar­i­ty, and will sad­ly no longer be per­form­ing at the festival”

Bön is an alum of Music for the Many, a cam­paign run by the Peace & Jus­tice Project, which was found­ed by for­mer Labour leader Jere­my Cor­byn MP. On the boy­cott, Mr Cor­byn stat­ed, ​“The many artists and venues who have pulled out of The Great Escape over the festival’s ties to the financiers of war shows us there is a grow­ing move­ment against the cul­ture-wash­ing of those fund­ing some of most dis­grace­ful atroc­i­ties in human history.

“The real­i­ty is that artists and venues, many of whom face finan­cial inse­cu­ri­ty, should nev­er have been put in a posi­tion where their cre­ativ­i­ty and tal­ent is used to laun­der the rep­u­ta­tions of those enabling the glob­al arms trade. Fes­ti­val organ­is­ers should stand on the side of human­i­ty and cut ties with those aid­ing and abet­ting death and destruc­tion in Gaza and around the world.”

Con­ven­er of the Music For The Many and Art Against The Arms Trade cam­paigns Samuel Sweek added, ​“For too long, the blood soaked hands of the war machine have used our music and cul­ture to laun­der their rep­u­ta­tions and absolve them­selves of their sick prof­i­teer­ing from the dev­as­ta­tion in Gaza and oth­er conflicts.

“Artists and fans alike are fight­ing back against cul­ture-wash­ing with Art Against The Arms Trade demand­ing UK fes­ti­vals cut ties with Bar­clays and those fund­ing geno­cide. We stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all artists who have called for The Great Escape to cut ties with Bar­clays – and par­tic­u­lar­ly those who have dropped out. We will con­tin­ue fight­ing for the arts, for the peo­ple, not the profiteers.”

BAE Sys­tems, Elbit Sys­tems, The Great Escape and Live Nation were all con­tact­ed for com­ment. None had been pro­vid­ed at the time of pub­li­ca­tion.

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