LAST UPDATE | 12 Mar

KNEECAP HAVE HIT back at British Prime Minister Keir Starmer after he said what the Irish language rap trio stand for and say is “completely intolerable”.

Starmer, who is visiting Ireland today, said the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) would be looking at a judgment that a member of the group will not face a terror trial “very carefully”.

“Fuck Keir Starmer,” the band said in a post on social media. 

“A man who couldn’t get us cancelled from Glasto. A man who couldn’t beat us in court. A man who has destroyed the Labour Party. A man who’s government supports war criminals in Israel with weapons and intelligence,” the post read. 

Kneecap rapper Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, had been accused of displaying a flag in support of proscribed terror organisation Hezbollah at a gig in north London in November 2024.

But the case was thrown out in September last year, with chief magistrate Paul Goldspring ruling the proceedings were “instituted unlawfully”.

The CPS appealed against the decision at the UK High Court at a hearing in January, with the Kneecap rapper opposing the challenge.

In a judgment yesterday, two judges at the High Court upheld the decision and dismissed the CPS appeal.

Fuck Keir Starmer

- A man who couldn't get us cancelled from Glasto

- A man who couldn't beat us in court

- A man who has destroyed the Labour Party

- A man whose government supports war criminals in Israel with weapons and intelligence https://t.co/J7UJqgy9yi

— KNEECAP (@KNEECAPCEOL) March 12, 2026

Judge Goldspring had agreed with Ó hAnnaidh’s lawyers that prosecutors needed to seek the Attorney General’s permission to charge the rapper before informing him on 21 May that he would be charged with a terror offence.

This permission was sought and given the following day, which the court heard meant the charge fell outside the six-month time frame in which criminal charges against a defendant can be brought.

Asked during a visit to Belfast about the decision to bring the case against the group member, Starmer said: “My views on Kneecap are very well known in relation to what they stand for and what they say, which is completely intolerable.

“I think the CPS were obviously subject to the High Court decision and they will be looking at the judgment very carefully.”

In a statement released after the judgment yesterday, O hAnnaidh said: “This entire process was never about me, never about any threat to the public and never about ‘terrorism’, a word used by the British Government to discredit people you oppress both in Ireland and across the world.

“It was always about Palestine and about what happens if you dare to speak up. About what happens if you can reach large groups of people and expose their hypocrisy.

“I will not be silent. Kneecap will not be silent.”

Speaking to The Journal following yesterday’s judgement, Ó hAnnaidh’s solicitor Darragh Mackin said that a malicious prosecution case may be brought against the British government. 

With reporting from Diarmuid Pepper and Press Association