Irish artists Pillow Queens and CMAT are the first acts to cancel their participation in this summer’s Latitude festival because of sponsor Barclays’ investments in companies that supply Israel with weapons and military technology.
In a statement on Instagram last week, Pillow Queens announced that they would be cancelling their appearance at the July festival in protest against the festival’s choice of sponsor. The Dublin quartet explained:
“Latitude – a festival we were booked for in the UK in July – names Barclays as its main partner. A May 2024 report by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) details Barclays’ financial links to companies that manufacture weapons and military technology used in Israel’s attacks on Palestinians. It reveals that Barclays has increased its financial links to companies that supply Israel with weapons. The PSC is calling on people to boycott all Barclays services until the bank ends its complicity in Israel’s attacks on Palestinians.
As a band, we believe that artistic spaces should be able to exist without being funded by morally corrupt investors.
For this reason we have withdrawn from the Latitude Festival.
Freedom for Palestine.” (Freedom for Palestine).
Now her Irish artist colleague CMAT has also announced that she wants to boycott the festival.
“You may or may not know it,” she writes on Instagram, “but Latitude’s main sponsor is Barclays Bank, which has been revealed to have increased its funding to various companies that supply Israel with weapons and military technology. Specifically, it has invested over £100 million in General Dynamics, which supplies weapons systems for the fighter jets Israel uses to bomb Gaza.”
The singer and songwriter’s statement continued: “In light of all the press coverage of the brave artists who cancelled the Great Escape festival for the same reasons, Latitude would either withdraw its involvement with Barclay’s or find another sponsor.” That, she says, will not happen.
“I will not allow my precious work, my music, which I love so much, to be associated with violence,” she continues. “Myself and the entire CMAT tour crew, which I love so much, refuse to be complicit in genocide.”
“Let me be clear. There is a genocide going on in Palestine right now. As a citizen, all I can do is attend as many demonstrations as possible and try to follow the recommendations of the BDS boycott list as closely as possible. This falls under this action. I hope that as many of you reading this as possible choose to show your solidarity with the Palestinian people in any way you can.”
The festival sponsors’ links to companies that supply the Israeli military in its ongoing war against the Palestinian people also led Irish artists to lead a boycott of the SXSW festival in March.